[Principles] Conviction!! Writing makes life easier and more enjoyable.

Hello! I'm Rakutani, whose motto is "easy and enjoyable"!!

This time, I will write about "writing," which I believe is the most important thing in life, incorporating my own biases and opinions.

・"I want to make life easier and more enjoyable"
・"I don't know what I should do"
・"Reality is tough"
These are solutions to things everyone thinks about, so please take a look until the end if you'd like.

Do you usually write things down in a notebook or memo (app) to keep them?
No one around me does. Even if they do, it's just leaving shopping lists or small tasks on sticky notes.

So far, I have written on a lot of paper, including 14 A4 notebooks (40 pages each), over 1000 sheets of A4 copy paper, more than 4 palm-sized memo pads, and idea notebooks. (I'll omit digital, as I don't have a detailed grasp of it.)

It might be hard to imagine how much I've written based on the numbers above, but

Since I always write on A4 notebooks as a spread, maybe it's about 100,000 characters per book? So, 14 books × 100,000 characters = about 1.4 million characters. Since I throw away the copy paper, I have handled a volume of over 1.4 million characters written so far.

The conclusion I reached from that is "writing makes life easier and more enjoyable."

Before I explain how I reached this conclusion, I want you to know the term "principles."

"Principles" refers to the fundamental ideas or mechanisms of things.

Here, I define the "principle" of "making life easier and more enjoyable" as "writing."

If I leave it at that, it's too much of a leap, so I will present the elements of "making life easier and more enjoyable" and explain how they connect to "writing" from here on.

Making it easier and more enjoyable = elements necessary for "happiness"

Everyone thinks, "I want to be happy!!" in life, but if I were to put my happiness into words, it would be "easy and enjoyable."

For some people, it might be status! Honor! Money! Women! Luxury! but for me, those are just elements that are the tip of the iceberg of "easy and enjoyable."

And to satisfy this "easy and enjoyable" = happiness, there are the following elements.

• Health
  ・Body
  Healthy life expectancy, talking energetically until I die
  ・Mental
  Overcoming difficulties, spirit of independence, being strict with myself and kind to others

• Human relationships
  ・Being able to spend time without holding too much stress in family, workplace, hobbies, etc., and enjoying it even more than that.

• Work
  ・Rewarding, fun, moderate working hours that don't crush other happy elements

• Hobbies
  - You can get absorbed in them, feel your growth, and relax.

These are the elements that are often brought up.

Here, what is important is not to depend on others for happiness.

Things like status, fame, money, women, and luxury that I mentioned at the beginning depend on others, and furthermore, they have limits, or they have no limits at all.

While those things are important, I believe that by fulfilling health, relationships, work, and hobbies, you can become "easy and enjoyable" = happy. Also, by fulfilling these four elements, status, fame, money, women, and luxury will naturally follow.

And, what is also very important is to maintain a balance among these.

It is absolutely necessary to lean toward one or another during a long life.
There are times when you are absorbed in work, or times when you go all out on a hobby, but in the end, it is about balance.

What should we do about these complexly intertwined elements of happiness?

I understood that happiness is fulfilled by health, relationships, work, and hobbies, and that it is important to maintain a balance among them.

So? But isn't that what makes life difficult? I have always wondered that after reading various books.

That is where "writing" comes in.
The four elements of happiness, "health, relationships, work, and hobbies," can be fulfilled while maintaining a balance by writing.

First, as for the benefits of writing

- By laying out your thoughts, you free up brain space = "Your brain space more than doubles"

- Because you can view your thoughts objectively, you can have a deep dialogue with yourself = "Leads to the discovery of your own axis"

There are various benefits to writing, but the fundamental principles of those benefits are the two mentioned above.

As for how these benefits affect the elements of happiness

Since your brain space more than doubles, you can process work smoothly. Then, since there is also space available for hobbies, you can get absorbed in your hobbies when you get home.

By having a dialogue with yourself and re-examining yourself objectively, you can notice when your mental state is off, notice distortions in relationships, and notice subtle changes in your body.

Also, because your own axis becomes firm, you will have no regrets in your judgment of things.

These are the actual effects I have experienced from writing.

Here is the "principle".

The "principle" of the elements that lead to happiness, to put it extremely, is yourself.

If you can manage yourself, you can solve most problems and satisfy the elements that lead to happiness.

Therefore,I am convinced that "writing," which strengthens you, is the "principle" of happiness.

Pursuit of principles and writing & synergy

To summarize my thoughts up to this point,

"Becoming happy" means
making things "easier and more enjoyable,"
fulfilling "health, relationships, work, and hobbies,"
and maintaining a balance by not depending on others,
and you are the only one who can do that,
and the best way to strengthen that self is "writing"

is what it comes down to.

Furthermore, as another important point,

"Principles" and "writing" have a massive synergistic effecton each other.

Synergy is when two elements combine to produce an explosive effect. (That's a bit of a rough explanation)

As a result of pursuing principles, I became convinced that writing is the best method.

And by writing, I was able to further pursue the principles of other things.

By pursuing principles, you can understand the core of things and become explosively better at them.

Even Elon Musk says that "understanding the trunk and roots of a tree, rather than the branches and leaves," is the most important thing.

If asked what is important in running a company, I would immediately answer "people."

Business ideas and capital are not important. The root that keeps a company a company is people.

In that case, it can be considered that hiring people is also the most important thing.
To hire excellent people, you clarify what needs to be done, such as understanding the company's management philosophy and selecting the desired skills.

The same applies to managing yourself.

You are the one who manages the company called "yourself."

If you can use yourself well, you can make things work out.

This is about the principles for that, and the pursuit of writing.

Examples of principles and solving problems through writing

This time, I've jumped too far ahead by saying "the principle of happiness is writing," so I want to share a more relatable personal example to help it click for you.
(If it already clicked for you, please skip to the summary. It's long!!)

Example: Long-standing resentment and frustration toward my mother

After spending many years together, there are mountains of gratitude, but just as many feelings of frustration and resentment also arise, don't they?

First, I understood that the frustration and conflict with my mother were things that had accumulated over time. Then, I realized that at the root of it all was the reaction to the effort she put into raising three siblings as a single mother.

I was able to understand this thanks to writing.

Thanks to that, I now spend my time determined to be grateful to my mother, respect her, and definitely repay her kindness. Helping out and not making her worry are a given; I am aiming for something beyond just being independent.

By writing, I calmly came to understand that my mother wasn't at fault. It was the environment that was bad.

Once that happened, I didn't want to be on edge, so by writing in my notebook, "In that case, let's make things easier for her! What should I do?", I was able to take actions that were effective and not just self-serving.

The first thing that came to mind to make things easier and more enjoyable was to give her a gift, but that would only be a temporary fix, so I thought about telling silly stories so that she would always be smiling.

It might be extreme, but telling silly stories is incredibly fun. And to create time every day for such silly stories and for her to relax, I started taking the initiative to do the dishes, the bare minimum of laundry, and handle minor digital-related issues.

In this way, the problem of us both being frustrated had its
"principle" identified as my mother's parenting stress, leading to a continuous solution for that environment.

And, writing in a notebook to derive those solutions.

This is my experience of solving long-standing resentment and frustration toward my mother using principles and a notebook.

For other things, if it's a hobby, I might ask, "Isn't understanding human proportions the fastest way to make figures well?" If it's work, "Is organizing the flow of actions the best way to increase work speed?" If it's health, "Isn't sleep the most effective thing?" I pursue the root principles and write to prove them.

Summary

This time, I have connected and explained the three words "happiness," "principles," and "writing." Therefore, it is long, difficult to understand, and has parts that are quite a leap. (I will write about each of these in detail in future articles.)

What I can say for sure is that pursuing principles and pursuing them by writing is

・"Wanting to make life easier and more enjoyable"
・"Not knowing what to do"
・"Reality is painful"

I am convinced that it resolves such problems and makes you 'happy'!!!

The world is complex, but simple things make us the happiest.

P.S.: Killing ten birds with one stone

This ended up being incredibly long...

Originally, I only intended to write a draft today, just a light reflection on 'writing' and then maybe write an article, but I got more passionate than I expected!!!

I didn't think I would end up writing about fundamental principles.

While I was reflecting and writing in my notebook,

I started wondering, what is the most important thing in life? That was the beginning of this long piece.

Then I thought, 'Hmm, isn't it simply killing two birds with one stone?'

It's like when you accomplish one thing, you can go on to accomplish other things as well.

By writing in a notebook,

・You can keep a daily record, which is great for creating memories.
・You can practice metacognition and judge yourself objectively.
・You can calmly face negative emotions like anger and sadness.
・You can organize your tasks.
・You develop the ability to think about complex matters. (Like strengthening mental arithmetic with an abacus)
・You come up with ideas, making every day fun.
・You can brainstorm solutions for both hobbies and work.
・The accumulating notebooks become a tangible result, which feels good.
・Simply running a pen across paper feels good.

Are these all the benefits of writing?
There are still more, but,

isn't it more like killing ten birds with one stone???

Excuse me for asking, but do you get benefits like the ones above from playing games?
The benefits you get depend on the genre of the game, but I don't think they compare to a notebook.

I think there are other things that can provide benefits as well.

Like meditation (mindfulness) or exercising.

Exercise and meditation also have many benefits, like killing many birds with one stone, don't they?

Even so, I am convinced that writing in a notebook is the best.

That is because, in the first place, understanding the benefitsof doing exercise or meditation (or anything new) is the hardest part.

People can only bring themselves to act seriously on things that involve avoiding a loss, or things that are easy and have a massive effect. Or things that have both.

Therefore, the most important thing is to first understand as quickly as possible the benefits of doing something and the disadvantages of not doing it.

Andwriting is the best way to understand benefits as quickly as possible.

Returning to the perspective of strengthening yourself that I wrote about a long time ago, you cannot exercise or meditate without strengthening your ability to understand.

People who can exercise or meditate have motivation born from the repeated explosion of their hearts wanting to solve things—wanting to be popular, not wanting to be looked down upon, wanting to look cool, or wanting to stay healthy.

In this way, they can understand the benefits of exercise and meditation and take action.
Also, as a set, they can take more action because there is the frustration of constantly feeling complexed.

This is what it means for people to act seriously regarding something where they might lose out, or something that is easy and provides tremendous results, or both.

Buta major pitfall is that the aspect of ease is missing.

Since many people seek results from the very beginning, they usually end up quitting.

Up to this point, we can see that even if you understand the benefits and have the emotion of not wanting to lose out, you stop taking action because there is no ease.

Writing can also fill thatneed for ease.

That is the immediate effect of anger management and metacognition.

The first time I truly felt the effects of writing was when I scribbled in a notebook while I was frustrated.

Have you ever felt like, "Ah, I'm so frustrated!!! I want to punch someone right now!!"? I have, many times!

However, when I tried the anger management techniques I had seen in books or on TV, clutching at straws, I felt refreshed.

The reason why writing out the feelings of anger that were swirling around makes you feel refreshed is that you can separate your emotions from the facts and view them objectively.

Doesn't this fit the earlier description of something where you might lose out, or something that is easy and provides tremendous results?

I think this has become an example where the principles and the power of writing are put to use.

Here too, I think this has become an example of how the principles and the power of writing are applied.

Many things make life happy, but first, you must become capable, and as a principle for that, you must understand the psychology of taking action. And, you must master writing, which easily provides tremendous effects like killing ten birds with one stone.

I have written at length, but that is all!!

It's a P.S., yet it's long!!

I've written over 5700 characters so far.
I started writing around four o'clock, and it's now seven in the morning!
I feel like my mind is sharp! (lol)
So I think I'll write in my notebook, brainstorm some ideas, and study on Kindle.
.

Anyone who has read this far is amazing! See you next time.