Personally I consider it an important reminder of how it is not necessarily a more intense effort that can help us get sooner to the destination we have in mind, but rather an attention to the quality of our effort. Doing better step by step than trying to do more by burning down the steps will put less stress and anxiety in our lives.
It’s a bit like when we train our body. Practising intensive sports from time to time will only serve to traumatize your body. While a constant but carefully calibrated effort allows us not only to achieve lasting results, but to make each step of the journey much more enjoyable.
In life it happens sometimes that the difficulties are transformed into problems and that the efforts necessary to solve the complexities that life presents to us are important and sometimes last a long time. Sometimes we feel discouraged, and we feel like saying “Enough, I can’t take it any longer, when will it end?”. That’s how we lose trust in life.
Those who know the universal law of alternation continue to have confidence in life, whatever happens because they know that everything is change, renewal and impermanence. They were able to observe that an expansion necessarily follows a contraction and that after dark the light returns. They are aware that one day things will change, and that life will make them smile again.
The guides who accompany the great expeditions in Kilimanjaro, one of the highest mountains in the world, use a Swahili expression to comfort fatigued walkers: “Polé, polé”, which means “slowly, slowly, one step at a time”.
Without interpreting what happens to us or projecting ourselves into a future that we do not know, we are left with only the concrete possibility of welcoming our moments of misfortune, without resisting them, because all the efforts will only cause loss of energy.
So, go ahead, keep on with trust in life, and slowly, slowly, one step at a time, you will find the light at the end of the tunnel.
The Japanese people have an incredible ability to recover from catastrophes of any kind. After World War II that left the country in ruins, in just thirty years Japan became the second largest economy in the world, becoming leaders in the electronics sector in the eighties and nineties. How could the Japanese economic miracle happen? The answer has to do with an expression that we should use too: “ganbatte” which means “try your best”.
Here lies one of the differences between the fragility of the Western culture and the resilience of Japanese culture: how they deal with crisis’ situations.
In Japan, when they have to take an exam, they say “Ganbatte kudasai“, which is the best way to tell others to do their best. In this case, there is no external factor on which the outcome of your exam depends on. According to the Japanese, if you try your best, you will get a result, which even if not the best ever, it will be the best for you, because it represents your maximum effort.
Another Japanese saying, also very useful to all of us, is: “if you want to warm a rock, sit over it for a hundred years”, which means that to overcome great difficulties you need to be patient. However, this doesn’t mean sitting down and waiting for circumstances to change, it means actually working to create new situations and opportunities.
The “ganbatte” is present in the individual and collective activities of the Japanese, and it is very much linked to the Ikigai, that is simply the priority around which everything else (often unconsciously) turns.
In 1995, when the disastrous earthquake happened in Kobe causing enormous damages, the slogan that circulated in Japan was: Ganbaro Kobe. The meaning of the message was: strength and courage from all of us; united and with efforts we will get out of this situation.
Later on, in 2011, on the occasion of another great earthquake that caused the nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima, the slogan that encouraged all Japanese was: Ganbaru Nippon! This encouraged all Japanese to join in the collective effort to help all those involved in the catastrophe. A collective effort was required, and this spirit manifested heroically when retired workers from the nuclear power plant, volunteered to control it. The reason presented by those people was that it was better for the radiation to affect people who had already lived a good part of their lives rather than young people with a future ahead.
A good lesson for all of us in these difficult times. We could try to do as the Japanese do by following these four practical tips.
Do and not complain. Don’t complain with your arms crossed: do something. Value your actions, even if they seem of little importance to you, in reality everything you do is important. As the Kaizen philosophy says, modest but continuous progress ends up in a great transformation.
Hope instead of despair. An attitude of hope focused on day after day rather than on “when this will end” helps to keep morale high.
Don’t waste energy. Don’t venture into endless arguments, which get you nowhere. It is necessary to keep all your strengths (mental and physical) to keep moving forward.
Seek the company of enthusiastic people. We are friends by affinity. This does not, however, exclude that we can surround ourselves with people with a ganbatte spirit, who strive to improve rather than seeing only the negative side.
Crisbie Coach 