I Decided to Stop Seeking Rewards

I realized that I was thinking, "I did all this research for them."

Last year, I tried to lead an initiative at work to "create a workplace where each person's individuality can flourish." Along with eight colleagues, I researched academic papers and case studies from other companies, and put together a proposal that I felt was theoretically sound. I spent my weekends thinking about it constantly.

But it was stopped when the top management told me, "Even if it works in academic papers or other organizations, we don't know if it will work here. So, we can't do it."

The words that came to me then were pathetic."I did all that research for the company," and "I spent my whole weekend thinking about it."

At first, I had no such intentions at all. I was supposed to be doing it because I wanted to, for the sake of the employees and my colleagues. Before I knew it, that had been replaced by a grade-schooler-like expectation of a reward, thinking, "But I worked so hard." Being shut down was less shameful than realizing that about myself.

Around that time, my wife was lying on the sofa next to me, looking at her phone and giggling. She had quit her job to pursue what she wanted and was living at her own pace. Yet, I felt a sense of resentment, thinking, "I'm working so hard here."

That's when it hit me. Am I really so great that I can judge others? In the first place, I was supposed to be working so that I could spend happy times with my wife. And yet, I was about to blame her. What am I doing, I thought.

I think I must have been putting my effort in the wrong direction somewhere.

Finding things I can enjoy without seeking a reward

So I decided:I will focus on things I can truly enjoy without seeking a reward.

If I do that, even if I get shut down or go unrecognized, I can just say, "I'm just enjoying my life." I wanted that kind of strength.

Happiness is built on a foundation of "being absorbed"

The clue I used to think about this was the "Integrated Model of Happiness" I had considered before. Happiness has a structure like a "two-story house": the first floor is the foundation (mental and physical health, and secure human relationships), and the second floor is the fulfillment built on top of that (daily "cheerfulness" and "purpose in life"). And I believe that a purpose in life doesn't start by aiming for some grand "meaning of life" right away, but rather by starting with "things you can get absorbed in."

If you push yourself based on other people's standards, the first floor collapses first. That's what happened to me. So now, while taking care of the first floor, I've decided to look for the entrance to the second floor—"things I can get absorbed in."

There were two things I could get absorbed in as a child

The other day, I spent three hours from the morning facing myself. The theme was"What are the things I can truly enjoy and get absorbed in without seeking a reward?". Looking back on my past, there were two things I could clearly remember.

The first is "crafting." In kindergarten, I would build endlessly with Lego blocks. For some reason, I could build them symmetrically, and I remember being praised for it often. It was fun to be able to build freely and with my own attention to detail.

The second is "playing at exploring possibilities." Turning over stones to look for pill bugs. I remember being so absorbed in it that I missed lunch and cried in the hallway. I did the same thing at the beach and the river. Baby flounders, seahorses, eels. Even now, when I see a coastline, I get an itch to turn over rocks.

These two things, "being able to be particular about things freely" and "exploring possibilities." When I think about it, there was an activity that could satisfy both at once:cooking and baking.

Actually, I have been cooking for myself for nine years, and I have always enjoyed coming up with my own combinations—like adding kombu tea to tomato-based pasta or yuzu kosho to carbonara. It is probably the same kind of fun I had when I used to build with LEGOs.

I wrote about the sequence of events that led me to start "foolish-palate baking" in another article, "The Story of How My Homemade Almond Tofu Was So Delicious That I Went to Taiwan to Verify It," so please take a look at that if you like.

It is not about stopping the effort. It is about changing the "fuel."

Just to be clear, I do not intend to stop "working hard" itself. It is probably just my nature, so it is impossible. I actually quite enjoy studying for certifications or researching investments on the weekends.

What I want to change is the "fuel" for that effort.

When you run on the fuel of "wanting to be recognized," you run out of gas the moment you are not. That is exactly what happened to me with a company initiative. Conversely, the time spent listening deeply to someone's story and digging into how their past and decisions connect to their present is fun, even if the preparation is difficult. Because the fuel is the feeling that completes itself in the moment—the desire to respond to the trust they showed by sharing their story—I do not run out of gas.

Therefore, I will be increasing the number of things like that, where "the act itself is fun, so I can keep running."

In this note, I will be writing about the process of defining "what it means to live healthily" in my own words and using myself as a test subject to put it into practice. I would be happy if you could watch over my journey as I search and move forward.

Thank you very much for reading until the end.