In my back and forth with international moves, I’d come to what I considered to be the last roll of the dice. I’d been toying with the idea of another stint in Japan for years. Since first living there I’d been a digital nomad, lived in Thailand for 18 months and tried unsuccessfully to settle back in to Melbourne.
My plan was to continue with my stock investing and also study Japanese 3 hours a day at a school. Once I got my Japanese to business level I figured I’d get into finance in Tokyo, or start my own business. After a lengthy application process I secured my visa (above) and was ready to depart.
It was a morning flight, I got to bed early to get some extra sleep. But sleep would not come. Finally I got to sleep sometime around midnight, only to wake up an hour later in a cold sweat. Some degree of pre-flight nerves were to be expected, I was moving to a new city and country after all. But this was beyond the norm, the move wasn’t sitting right.
I was determined though.
In hindsight I was already mid stage into burnout. I’d been pushing myself for years. Constantly moving from country to country. Intermittent fasting. Cold plunges. A one hour yoga routine every morning. Living in crowded and polluted cities with limited access to high quality food. Hard gym sessions, training to failure, four or five times a week.
I was pushing in everything I did. It had become habit. It had become my way of life.
I was like Icarus, flying too close to the sun. We know how that story ends.
I already knew something wasn’t right. My body wasn’t behaving like it used to. I often felt light headed in the gym. If I had a particularly demanding session, I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. My body was giving me signs. I ignored them. Like the ill-fated Greek heroes of old I was determined to fight against the Gods.
I was a captive of my intellect, it weaved and created reasons why I should go ahead. And I listened. Foolishly. Not everything that the voice in our head tells us corresponds to our best interests.
Being determined however, I soldiered on. A sailor in a tempest, screaming in the face of lashing rain, thunder and lighting. The Gods? They just become angrier and angrier. The move didn’t go well. I was met with obstacle after obstacle. Still I kept pushing. I would not hear the message. Until finally the message became impossible to ignore and my body and mind collapsed underneath me.
It’s been a year since then. I’ve largely recovered.
Despite the adventure being ill-fated, there were plenty of good experiences that came from it too.
The lessons are still coming up, bubbling to the surface as time goes on.
Somehow the experience made me quiet. Distrustful of my overly active intellect, that through its rationalising led me to ignore what my heart was trying to tell me quite clearly.
The heart always knows, it speaks to us subtly. Warning or encouraging, somehow it knows. If only we were more sensitive too it, we could avoid the many pitfalls in life. Our society and education systems don’t value the heart though. They value and train our intellect. And our intellect gets exercised over-time, getting stronger and stronger until it dominates and blots out our finer sense.
Technology has added fuel to the fire. Now we have new tools, artificial reasoning algorithms, that take our thoughts, extend them and build upon them. Taking us further down the funnel of the intellect. Making it so that we can’t escape. Escape from a mechanism who’s purpose is it’s survival, not our happiness. We move further away from nature, from our nature. Many are now flying too close to the sun.
Still, not all is lost. Far from it. The heart is still close at hand. It never gives up on us. Never gives up on guiding us, even if we turn away from it.
The mind says I want to be wealthy. I want to be successful. I want to be idolised. I want a nice house. I want that glamorous girlfriend. I want. I want. And when I have it, THEN I’ll be happy.
The heart says, well actually I like writing, and my garden and teaching and walking in the park and the girl that works at Aldi. And I’m happy right now if you’ll let me be.
I think there’s a middle road too. Let the mind set it’s target, but give the heart the time to lead us there. And accept too that the journey and final destination may not be exactly what we had imagined, in fact it could well be better. We just need to remain flexible. To be more accepting of what comes our way, instead of trying to control and manufacture everything.
Those who strive, those who are bright, those who have something to prove, you are especially susceptible. Proceed with care. If you are not careful your mind will attempt to grip life too hard, and like muscling a golf swing, you’ll always put in too much effort and shank the ball to the right. Loosen your grip. Make your swing fluid and smooth.
Accept the limitations of your intellect. In this world of infinite complexity even the most powerful intellect is a weak decision making instrument. To swing through life with ease, to work with the gods and not against them, we need to catch the wind. To listen to the hearts song. The heart, if we let it, is the conduit to a much deeper and more powerful level of intelligence.
True insight and creativity come from this depth. It is why great composers and artists talk about their work coming to them in complete form.
So try, but not too hard.