To a place half a step away from someone else's expectations

I have a habit of living
within someone else's expectations

During the year-end holidays, while cleaning my room,
a certain phrase suddenly struck a chord.

I tried writing about it as if to unravel it.
As a conclusion to this year,
it's something like a memorandum,
but please read it if you'd like.

Old albums
Those days becoming vivid

Even though I should have been stacking up safe choices until now,
lately, I've been feeling a lack of fulfillment in that very 'safety'.
I have a sense that I'm doing well.
But at the same time, I still have a feeling that I'm not using my full potential.

Looking back, the younger me was quite reckless.

During the employment ice age, I worked in interior design introduced by a senior,
but the boss was abrasive and the work was tough, so I quit,
and I ended up at a shop my stepfather was running.
I think it was an easy choice.
Getting daily wages, moving as I was told.
Nightlife establishments, adult entertainment venues.
I was about 23.

For my impressionable self, there was plenty of stimulation,
every day was thrilling, and there was no boredom.

Back then,
in exchange for not knowing what would happen tomorrow,
I had a sense of living today without deceiving myself.

After that, I became independent and became the master of a show bar,
spending my days performing flashy acts in front of people and receiving tips.
Eventually, I shifted my focus to restaurants,
and it finally became a job I could face my own parents with.

Thinking about it now,
I think I was living by taking full responsibility for my own discretion and results
in a place where no correct answers or safety were provided.

Time has passed since then,
and the form of stimulation has changed.

Miscalculations brought about by encounters

Experiencing different cultures overseas.
Seeing breathtaking views in the winter mountains, side-by-side with danger.
And, my encounter with photography.

Photography isn't something so grand that it changed my life.
It's just an existence that, while walking the same path,
shifted my position by just half a step.

The trigger was a coincidence.
Influenced by someone I became friends with during training
who loved photography and travel, I got hooked on photography.

I went to various places,
took photos, and even submitted them to photo contests.
It was also around this time that I started receiving recognition.

I built up various achievements, used the gift certificates I received as prizes to buy my own camera,
and finally started to polish 'my own sense'.

The current me is certainly walking half a step off. But, I haven't fully shifted yet.

Economic power and time constraints,
rational judgments to protect myself.
Before I knew it, I was competing even deeper in the safe zone,
in a place like a shelter.

Last year, I went out into the world in the form of a solo exhibition,
and through the platform of NHK,
I felt like I saw 'the world' for the first time.

And next year,
as an external lecturer,
I will be standing in front of students I don't know.

There, there is no place to run, and no expectations.
It is the first half-step I am taking off the path by my own will.

That is why this year,
I want to make it a year where I seriously go to fulfill the world
that I had stopped at 'I hope this comes true'.

I don't intend to jump far.
I will just change the place where I stand.

Not within someone else's expectations,
but within my own discretion.

This half-step,
this time, not by coincidence,
but to take it myself.