Excitement is right nearby. Finding heart-fluttering moments in everyday life

When living in a town in rural Hokkaido, people visiting from urban areas sometimes ask me point-blank, "Honestly, aren't you bored?"

It is true that there may be few trendy shops or flashy events. That is precisely why the opening of a chain store, which you would find anywhere in a city, becomes a big topic of conversation, though even those opportunities are not very frequent.

It is also a fact that some people avoid living in rural areas, saying they lack stimulation. However, no matter where you live, I believe there is a different kind of richness to be found in the places closest to you.

When I take a walk in the neighborhood, I am sometimes captivated by the flowers blooming in the gardens facing the sidewalk. There are many people who painstakingly grow seasonal flowers in limited spaces.

In Hokkaido, starting with the Lenten roses that bloom in spring, followed by Miyama columbines and lungworts, and then salvias and coneflowers in the summer, each garden blooms in its own way.

If you look at the roadside, wildflowers like dandelions, chickweed, and wood sorrel are blooming bravely, without anyone telling them to.

Whether they are garden varieties or wildflowers, their beauty is the same. In fact, I feel that wildflowers, where strength and delicacy coexist, have a special charm.

If you observe them closely, you can see that each wildflower has a delicate, sculptural beauty. They have a certain order, such as leaves growing symmetrically and petals spreading radially. Sometimes, I encounter such tiny flowers that I realize I had been overlooking them.

I used to think that in order to feel "excitement," I had to go out no matter what.

I tried to get stimulation by traveling to places I had never been, or by visiting newly opened trendy shops, art museums, and museums. I was convinced that I always needed to be on the move in search of things that were interesting, beautiful, new, or unknown.

However, the idea that you can only feel excited if you are always going to new places might be, in a sense, a form of restriction.

It is true that new shops in urban areas look dazzling. But once you go there, that freshness fades.

When that happens, you have to look for the next new place. There is something exhausting about this repetition.

I understand now. Irreplaceable "excitement" lives within our daily lives. The changes in a neighbor's garden, the seasonal wildflowers I meet on a small path—all of these can be treasures that enrich the heart.

Of course, I love going on trips and will continue to do so. However, realizing for myself that "excitement" exists right nearby without having to go out of my way to travel far was a discovery that was by no means small.

In everyday life, you can find heart-fluttering moments without doing anything special. If you can cultivate that kind of sensibility, perhaps you will never have time to feel bored.

Rather, I feel that this way of thinking is what leads to true freedom.