Cassandra harada

In April of each year, I go to Hokkaido and shear sheep at a friend’s farm. Each time, I sit down to dinner after a full day with the clippers, and my whole body is reeling from using muscles that haven’t seen use in months. Sheep shearing is hard, dirty work.
It’s a job that feels like “real” though. The shearer starts with a flock of wooly, grimy sheep, one by one skillfully peels off their fleeces, reveals their clean, skinnier bodies, and as the last sheep passes through the chute, the farmer can dust his hands, hang up the blades, feel satisfied, and be done until this time next year.
It’s the constant ritual and cycle in animal husbandry (done properly) that my farmer friend was waxing poetic about when taught me a pearl of Japanese wisdom that would change my life forever.
Taru wo Shiru (Taru = Enough, Shiru = understand)
I think he was on his fourth glass of sake when he started in:
“I built this farm, this house, and this life from nothing. If it exists in this exact state until I die, and our operation never gets bigger, and we never make more money than this, It is enough, in fact, it’s more than enough, and to be honest Cassie, that’s all you need to know in your life. You need to know what is your enough.”
I thought about that for a minute.
My eyes widened, and I had an “a-ha moment” that was seismic in nature. A part of my universe clicked into place, as I began to run all of my hopes and desires through that filter.
My friend continued on about the concept, telling me that “my enough” might often change, and there was nothing wrong with having more than my version of enough, but it was so very important to understand what I needed in all areas of my life, to feel satisfied.
I spent the next day shearing with my friend and thought hard about that. We toured the farm and imagined the inevitable satisfaction one might feel from living on a large plot of land, building, making, growing and working with one’s own hands, and enjoying the benefits of all of that hard labor. It was what dreams are made of, yet easily taken for granted when the greener and more “convenient” city life beckoned from downtown Tokyo.
As I transitioned back into my “regular life” I started applying the concept to all of the areas of my existence, especially in the portions that other people often feel lacking in. I thought about what I wanted for my future, what sort of material possessions I desired, and how difficult it was to attain them. As I stacked up parts of my life into two columns, (“Enough” and “Not Enough”) I became eerily calm. I started looking at Instagram, and Facebook, talking to friends, and even watching the TV and the popular culture through an entirely new lens. I no longer compared and felt envious of what others had because I put the “enough” stamp on that particular area of comparison. I found myself admiring other people’s possessions and accomplishments rather than coveting them or feeling jealous. It was entirely freeing.
People reading this might be wondering: What about the “not enough” column?? Well, my “not enough” column has a few things in it, and I truly believe that is the way it ought to be. Dissatisfaction is often what drives people to dream, and set goals. The hard part is pinpointing the dissatisfaction. Once my dissatisfactions are discovered, I make a plan, (sometimes long-term, sometimes short) and try to move the item into the “enough” column.
Another question I often get when I talk about this concept is: What happens when you have enough? Do you quit? No, no…no. I put those things, money, experiences and good feelings in the appropriate banks, watch my savings pile up, and when I’m feeling poorly about one of those things in the other column, I look at what I have piled up and require myself to feel constant gratitude. Being overwhelmed with feelings of thankfulness has nearly removed jealousy completely from my awareness. A good example of an item that was planted (and may be planted for a long time) in my “not enough” column is “Travel”. I haven’t seen enough of the world. When I realized that area was lacking, I sat myself down and made goals based on what was realistic for my lifestyle. I decided two new countries per year, and five cities in Japan would be a worthwhile number and it would be more than enough to stimulate and satisfy my curiosity about the world. Last year I visited Vietnam and Singapore. After coming home from my long stint abroad, it was clear to me that I was fulfilling my need, and my curiosities and desire to wander had been quelled.
Another friend asked me the simple question: What if a “not enough” item is impossible to reach or set goals for? (For example, a person who desires material wealth beyond what they can realistically achieve). I don’t think this method or filter for thinking is a “cure all”, or will always fix the need to “keep up with the jones’s (as we say in America). However, when I’d passed several goal posts for the more realistic targets I’d set out for myself, it gave me a very good idea of what I was personally able to accomplish, and drove me forward to new ideas of what I could achieve. Before I knew it, I was making some larger goals that I didn’t think were remotely possible in the beginning. I think having smaller “enough moments” lead to something bigger!
More than anything, I viewed all of this weighing, measuring and categorizing as nothing more than a long exercise in self-awareness. I took an age-old Japanese proverb and turned it into a lifestyle management tool that made a large dent in the level of unhappiness and anxiety I was feeling. I don’t think anyone knows who authored this proverb, but whoever that person is, I’m grateful they took such a simple idea, phrased it beautifully, and carved it into the stones, so it could make it’s way to me and perhaps to millions alike me.

The writer is Tokyo based freelance writer and hand knitter. She enjoys triathlon, travelling the world and being the best mother and wife she knows how to be. She can be followed on @sassiecassie7