5 Ways Living in Japan Has Changed Me

This Saturday marked my four year Japanniversary. And today marks the official beginning of my "Last Week In Japan". I've been doing a lot of reflecting on my time here, and I have come to realize just how much I have changed in the four years I have lived in this country.

I'm not the same person I was when I came here. For starters very few people are the same person they were at 22. Your mid-20s change you a lot and going from the sheltered life of a full-time student to an adult with a real job and real bills and a real apartment to manage really shifts the focus in your life. But, deep down, I still feel that I am the same Kaley I have always been, just cleaned up around the edges and more sure of myself.

College was a rough time for me in general, because of my anxiety I didn't really go out and meet people, I stayed inside my apartment watching anime and sleeping too much. I gained a lot of weight and was overall just a really unhappy person. Also didn't help that I was in a pretty emotionally draining relationship. Japan was my chance to start over and remove all off the bad things in my life. So often people have told me that I am so brave for coming to Japan, but I really view it as running away from a life I felt that I had failed at.

I wanted to try really hard in Japan to become that person I was before college, before the anxiety and the depression and losing myself in another person. And I think I did just that.

1. I am more forgiving.

While this is still a part of my life that I feel like I need to work on, overall I think I am a more understanding and forgiving person. When living in a foreign country you're constantly surrounded by people who don't think like you, don't act like you, don't believe in what you do, and don't speak like you do. Because of this you really have to learn to work with people, and not against them. Any sort of conversation I have with a Japanese person is a lot of compromise between the two of us trying to mix our languages and cultures together in order to understand one another. And it's beautiful.

2. Equal Rights matter more to me.

I've always been pro-equal rights. I mean, what good person isn't? But living in Japan has made me understand just how frustrating it can be to be judged for things I have no control over. While I did choose to come to a country that is almost entirely one race, I didn't expect just how often I would be treated separately because I am not "one of them". As a straight, white, female from a nice American suburb these issues have often gone over my head because I just can't understand them, but now that I have (in a very minor way) experienced this frustration I can see why people are as passionate as they are towards receiving equal treatment for things they can't control.

3. I care way less about "things".

When you move across the world you have to be picky with what matters. When you then move across a country you have to be picky about what matters, And when you again move to a different city you have to be picky about what matters. Not to mention my shoebox Japanese apartment doesn't really allow for a lot of "stuff". Looking around my apartment now on the brink of another global move, I realize just how much of the crap that fills me apartment doesn't mean to me and I just want it all gone. Bye!

4. I appreciate simple foods.

I've posted before about my food issues prior to living in Japan, but aside from widening the variety of foods that I was able to stomach Japan has taught me that loads of salt and artificial flavorings don't really make things more delicious. When I first moved here the food tasted bland, but in just a few short months I found that I can no longer handle bags of American Cheetos or bags of Skittles without feeling sick. And my trips back to America have often left me praying to the porcelain god when I gorge myself too much on these heavily processed foods!

5. I realized I can do anything.

Honestly, moving to Japan wasn't that difficult. Compared to everything else I have been through since getting on that plane four years back, finding the job and packing to leave was really easy. It was interacting with people in a language I barely understood, surviving an assault, moving between three different cities (once across country!), and building a strong foundation of friends in a country where I knew zero people that were hard. Thinking about moving to America and all the things I have to do there like getting a cell phone and finding an apartment and even getting a job seem so easy now because, well, everyone speaks my native language! Nothing can stop me because I've done it all before, but in Japanese!

Ways to be Better 2015

Now that my winter vacation is over it's time to get back in the habit of regular posting! I took the time off to plan a few posts I hope y'all will find interesting!

The New Year really gives me a great opportunity to go through the process of self-reflection. This is probably because I've always had a great deal of free time around the changing of the year due to being a student and a teacher and having this time free of work.

Here is a short list of five ways I would like to be better in 2015!

1. Travel More

When I moved to Japan in August of 2011 I had this mindset that I would spend my school breaks to travel the world and see all those things I have wanted to see and even some I didn’t know I wanted to. I would explore ruins with friends and find my way through winding city streets of countries far and wide! I would be a globe-trotter! My passport would be overflowing with stamps and visas and be battered and torn. I would be awesome.

Reality quickly set in, and after three years there isn’t a new stamp in my passport, which sits on my bookshelf gathering dust and taunting me. It is one of my biggest regrets for moving to Japan, but reality set in for me, and I found myself struggling to find time to travel due to a number of reasons. Namely, the inability to find someone to travel with. My first real break in Japan I explored the Kansai area, and it was a wonderful experience. Then, life happened and I had to spend my next vacation moving around the country. The break after that was spent saving money after an expensive move, and the following break was wasted on not having a travel partner. After that was a trip home, then saving from a trip home, then another trip home, and then saving again.

You get the drift.

2. Get Rid of Stuff, Embrace Quality over Quantity

I’ve already started this one and it’s awesome. I have a horrible habit of not being able to get rid of anything. I attach sentimental value to the most pointless of things, and my apartment reflects this. I have a wall covered in the tickets and pamphlets of places I’ve visited, I have stacks of letters written by students, and I have countless broken or useless gifts that I cannot bring myself to part with.

If I want to travel, if I want to move again, I will need less stuff.

I also have far too much clothing. There are things in my closet I wore in high school. I try to regularly go through my clothes and donate them, but I still have a hard time really cutting that number down. Last week when I cleaned out my closet I didn’t get rid of nearly as much stuff as I wanted to. Why? I don’t know. I haven’t worn many of these things in far too long. I think it has to do with my obsession with numbers.

We all do it, really, get so obsessed with having more Facebook likes or Twitter followers, the more clothes I have the more I have in general, that sort of mindset. The larger the number, the better my life is, right? It’s something that I put too much focus on and would like to change. I don’t need bookshelves full of books to seem smart, I don’t need closets full of $10 dresses to feel fashionable. Spending $50 on one nice dress vs. $60 on three cute, but cheap ones will be better for me overall. Quality over quantity! Why have 600 Facebook friends when I haven’t talked to over 2/3 of them in the last five years?

3. Do Yoga at Night (or morning, you know, whenever)

Anyone who knows me knows that I stress. I am a worrier. I analyze things that shouldn’t be analyzed. I look at all possible sides and then make up sides that don’t even exist. I used to go to the free gym at my university and take 90 minute yoga classes once or twice a week. This did wonders in just letting me take a time out and reflect on myself and get in touch with my body and the world around me. I love yoga! For me, it works. I need the centering that yoga brings. It’s a mental thing, completely, but I need mental things.

That’s why I want to do yoga at night. Fifteen, thirty minutes, whatever I have time for. Just something to get me grounded. I don’t need huge workouts, I don’t need to contort myself into seemingly impossible poses, but I do need to do something active to remove stress from my life. I've recently discovered a great YouTuber, Yoga With Adriene, who has great videos! I am currently on day 14 of her "30 Days of Yoga" series.

Yoga!

4. Be More Forgiving of Myself and Others

My habit of self-reflection can quickly turn into a habit of self-deprecation. I get so caught up in my own short-comings and it usually ends up as a huge ball of anxiety that sits at the pit of my stomach. I don’t really know where it comes from, but it’s there. Growing up I always had plenty of friends, did well in school, and was lucky enough to have great skin and a higher-than-average metabolism. Yet, for some reason, I always think that everyone else thinks the worst of me. I’ve come a long way in many regards, moving to Japan helped that immensely, but social events still make me slightly uncomfortable.

I also tend to be very unforgiving when it comes to other people. Not overall, but just about certain aspects. People who are oblivious to those around them quickly get on my nerves, causing me to be overly harsh and judgmental towards them. I also have a very low tolerance for people finding things difficult that I view as easy. Not in the sense of stupidity versus intelligence, but in a more general way. Say someone doesn’t understand how to cut an onion into small pieces efficiently, this would make me unreasonably frustrated with this person. Yet I just spent a good minute trying to spell “efficiently” properly, so I wouldn’t be annoyed at someone else for doing the same thing.

I need to let more things rolls off my shoulders, embrace the idea that perfection isn’t possible, and because I am not perfect I am interesting. And the same goes for you. Maybe instead of spending countless hours watching cooking shows on TV as a kid you spent all your time studying to becoming a spelling bee champion.

5. Write More

I am talking about creative writing here. Though, I suppose keeping up with this blog-style writing is also something I should strive to do, but I want my main focus to be on practicing the more fictional side of writing.

Creative writing is a very strange process for me. Where I can easily sit down for 30 minutes to an hour and churn out a blog post, it’s much different to actually sit down and write something more substantial, especially when it involves delving into a different world. A good, standard writing session for me is usually two and a half hours and depends on a number of factors.

Because of this time commitment, it is very difficult for me to just write creatively. But I need to practice more, I need to write things that aren’t such big undertakings. I’ve dedicated myself to writing a list of things I’d like to write this year; short-stories, poems, novellas, full novels, etc., and giving myself little bonuses when I complete them.

Resolutions like “write an hour every day” or “write this many words a week” are great, but leave me feeling down when I miss a day or am in bit of a writing-slump. I also need to get out of my “I can’t write at home!” excuse that I always use, for I spend so much time at home that it is just a lot of wasted potential.

Hopefully this year I can do more of what I want to do and focus less on what makes me feel bogged-down, and make strides towards becoming the person I would love to be once I have it all together. Though, I think that starts with admitting that no one really "has it all together".

Do you have any ways you'd like to improve this year?