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Written by: Tomohiro Koizumi, Representative Director, tentus inc.
For nearly 15 years, most people I've met have told me, "You always look like you're having fun." But before I established this style, my spirit broke about twice.
Back then, my motivation for work was [not wanting to lose to others], I saw my current position as [always at the edge of a cliff], and I lived quite on edge, I think.
"Don't be earnest—be serious," which I wrote in a recent entry—
—is precisely a phrase drawn from reflecting on the self I was back then.
Even when being earnest produced some results, I'd get terribly fixated on the few points where I fell short, and I kept driving myself into a corner.
As I wrote in the entry above, this really was a matter of personality, I think.
My first bout of depression was, I'm fairly sure, right after I—a lowly salaryman—had launched a mobile commerce business as a new internal venture and become an executive at a subsidiary.
While I was focused only on the work in front of me as an employee, I was still okay, but once I became the sole full-time executive overseeing the entire subsidiary, my eyes went to all sorts of shortcomings.
Acquiring new products, planning promotions, managing members, and so on—these days I'd rope everyone in with "let's do this together!", but back then I was convinced I had to do absolutely everything myself.
Doing things beyond my capacity like that, at some point I completely stopped being able to get up in the morning, and until around evening I'd be in a state where my mental energy volume was as close to zero as possible.
How did I resolve that mental state?
From that experience, let me offer some advice to people in similar circumstances.
× Don't try to do it all on your own
× Draw a line—work is work
× You don't have to try so hard
...Even if the me of back then had received advice like this, in that mental state I don't think I could have accepted it—and if I could have, my spirit wouldn't have broken in the first place, right? Truly.
So let me start with physically doable advice.
Advice 1: Move! Move! Move right now!
Actually, the room I lived in back then didn't get much morning sun.
Nothing good comes of a damp person sleeping in a damp room.
The size of the room doesn't matter at all.
Move to a room where the morning light is dazzlingly bright.
I won't get into the whole serotonin business here, but if you can't change your job, then change your living environment.
By sleeping in an environment where morning light forcibly falls on me, I got good at switching my feelings on and off.
I can't say moving alone changes everything.
But rather than the proactive action of taking a morning walk, place yourself in an environment where you can bathe in sunlight even with zero willpower.
Moving is one option, but if you can't manage to adjust your own heart well, I think it's good to force through whatever environmental change you can.
My second bout of depression was also the reason I ultimately quit that company: a few years later, various circumstances changed, I was getting yelled at furiously by the parent company's representative every single day, and I developed a stomach ulcer.
After a few years of executive life I'd built up at least some stress tolerance, but when you're truly under intense stress, you can actually feel it yourself—"ah... right now a hole is boring open in my stomach."
When you get a stress-induced stomach ulcer, the things you can eat drop dramatically.
Back then I feel like I spent about half a year eating nothing but udon while passing blood. (Though I was drinking alcohol while vomiting blood.)
The combo of stress → stomach ulcer → declining stamina → declining willpower → depression came fast.
In the month right before I quit the company, I'd lost 10 kilograms.
The only solid food I could eat was udon, blood came out when I went to the bathroom, and my willpower was zero.
There's no way someone like that can do their job, right?
The doctor gave me the grateful advice, "At this rate you'll die, so quit one of these: work, cigarettes, or alcohol."
I couldn't quit alcohol or cigarettes, so I quit work.
I resigned, gave up my apartment, sorted out my belongings, and went to the Bahamas.
https://bahamasgeotourism.com/
Yes, the Bahamas.
I took [changing my environment], which I'd learned during the move in Advice 1, and did it on an even more idiotic scale.
Two weeks after arriving in the Bahamas, a person who'd only been able to eat udon for half a year was able to eat steak.
That's when I learned something, watching the sunset on a Bahamas beach.
Advice 2: There are things you understand only after running away
Advice like "it's okay to run away" is out there in plenty of other books, I think.
But what I recommend is physical movement.
You don't have to go to the depths of the Amazon—somewhere a bit easier will do; just cut through, once, the roots you've been holding on to.
Then you'll surely notice something there.
Huh? I didn't actually have to go that far, did I?
The same kind of stress might arise at your destination too.
But there will definitely be a difference between before you went and after.
Whether you call it perspective or not I don't know, but at least I, after those two heartbreaks, came to think this:
Let's live seriously in order to live happily.
This time, everyone has had—is having—a hard time with COVID, I think.
But even amid all that, I was working while having quite a lot of fun.
Holding an online running club, running 10 kilometers to the office every day, and so on.
I've lost count of how many times I did a barbecue in the yard this summer.
Of course, how you enjoy things is up to each person.
But the one thing I intend to never lose is the intensity of trying to live happily.
Because of it, I can do my work properly, treat the people I meet with care, and distance myself from needless stress.
I really do think this is pretty haphazard advice.
Everyone has different positions and situations, and there are all sorts of financial issues too, I know.
I understand that not everyone can do it that way.
But what I truly think from the bottom of my heart is:
I wish everyone would just become a fool.