Posts Tagged ‘Work and Career’

So it has been just a little over two weeks since My wife and I left my old life in Tokyo and moved to the tropical island of Miyakojima. I am happy to say that things are still going great.

We have an amazing house that has a slight view of the ocean and is about 10 minutes walk from the harbor. It feels like we live in the country, but we live just outside of the city. It’s much bigger than our apartment in Tokyo, but costs less than half what we were paying.

Shopping for a vehicle has been a little more difficult. We rented a car for a month so we would have plenty of time to look, but it was difficult to find something worth while in our price range. Since the island is small and we were only planning to be here for a year, we wanted to spend as little as possible. The original plan was to rent for a year, but the local people we met told us we could save a lot of money by purchasing. They were right. We eventually found a nice little car for about $1,300 out the door. That is what it would cost us to rent for 4 months, so hopefully it runs well.

Even though it’s November, the weather is still warm (if not hot) and we are able to swim in the ocean several times a week. The water is warm and the life is amazing. I am an avid diver (I actually used to work at a scuba diving shop in California) and there is so much to see here. Yesterday we found a great spot that had literally dozens of clown fish.

The only difficulty so far has been getting internet. Our internet will be installed this coming Friday and I will try to post some pictures. In the meantime, I have found a �media center� where I can connect for free. The good thing is since we have no internet or TV, we have had to fill our time with swimming, fishing, dinner with new friends, and attending festivals.

While waiting to get a massage yesterday at Guppi no Shitasu (a great shiatsu place here in Miyakojima), I was scanning through the various books in office book shelf. There were quite a few that interested me, but one caught my attention above all the others. A book titled やりたい事をやれ, It basically translates into “Do The Things You Want To Do”. I only read through the table of contents, but the point of the book was clear. Do the things you really want to do and you won’t have any regrets.

Like a lot of books, I wish I could have read this one much earlier in my life. It is so easy to get wrapped up in what we are expected to do that we forget what we really want to do. Life is short and precious. If you doubt this, ask anyone who is getting into there 40s or 50s or above. My grandfather used to tell me that his face changed so quick he didn’t recognize himself in the mirror any longer. The point being that we need to live in the moment and enjoy life as much as possible.

There is no formula or perfect road to life. I used to constantly worry about making mistakes, but one wrong turn doesn’t mean you can’t end up on the original path you had intended. In fact, sometimes the short detours will actually move you ahead further than would have gotten by staying on the normal path.

I rarely worry about the mistakes I have made. Some of them have actually turned out to be really great experiences. However, I do think from time to time about the things I didn’t do or the chances I didn’t take. Like the old saying goes, I don’t regret the mistakes I made, but only the things I didn’t do. So what dreams aren’t you following in your life?