Go all in on what you love!

#Let's head in the direction that excites us

Hello

Shining a light on moms raising children

I am Tomomi Igawa, a stylish therapist in Hayama🌈

It is cloudy this morning in Hayama, and we are having a quiet morning without the sound of cicadas.

It is truly autumn now~ I want to eat chestnut rice♪ (lol)

Well, my second daughter's new learning journey began yesterday.

She decided to go to the friend who has been doing henna art for me for years, and she negotiated directly to start taking lessons to become a henna artist herself.

At first, I thought,
No, if you want to do regular drawing or crafts, you are already going to art therapy and also going to painting classes,

so isn't that enough already?
That is what I thought, but

at the event I hosted on the summer solstice with my fellow meditation treatment therapists,

she stuck to the person who was doing henna art the whole time.
Of course, she had a one-point design drawn on herself, watched them draw on others the whole time, and halfway through,
she helped out at the coffee shop,

helped wash dishes at the sweets shop, and then
earned some pocket money.

With that money and some of my sales, she even bought a cactus on her own,
(lol)

While watching everyone,

she observed what "work" is in her own way
and did it on her own.

Adults, who are bundles of fixed ideas,

You're still just a child...
You're only in third grade, right?
Isn't it still too early?

That's how you end up picking off
the buds of a child's motivation,
the desire to do something,

and their feelings of excitement...

Isn't that incredibly common?

Actually, I feel like
this is something that has always been done to me.

In Japan, people always ask children, "What grade are you in?" don't they?
Rather than their age, it's "Are you in preschool?" or "Are you in first grade?"

I feel like that's all they ever ask.

You're tall for a third grader!
or
You can't write kanji for a third grader,
or
Since you're in third grade, shouldn't you be able to do that by now?

and so on.

What is that? What is that standard?

And
for a child who has chosen not to go to school,

I don't think being asked "What grade are you in?"
makes them feel very good.

As for the future that adults are worried about,

When I went to talk to the principal during spring break about wanting to try both a free school and regular school this year,
what the teachers were worried about was

that by only coming to school once or twice a week,
with everyone else moving ahead in their studies,
my second daughter might feel bad
about being the only one who doesn't understand,

and that it's not just about studying,


but that school also plays the roleof ensuring children don't have trouble when they enter society,
sowhen you think about the future...
(including the nuance that they want her to come to school as much as possible)

is what they said.

That was when I realized,

This is exactly what I've been told my whole life!

"So you won't have trouble in the future"
"If you work hard now, it will be easier later"
"If you take the middle school entrance exam, you won't have to take the high school one"
and so on.

You've been told these things by your parents and teachers for a long time, haven't you?

So, what does that mean?

For the sake of the future,
for a future that might not even come,
for a future that we don't know how it will turn out,

it means you should work hard at things you don't want to do right now.

And as for the things you want to do now,
it's still too early,
now is not the time for that,
a child's job is to study (I was told that a lot!!)

is what you end up being told.

Let's do what we want to do now, and what we love now!

I am truly learning that from my second daughter.

I want to do what I love to the fullest,
and I absolutely do not want to do what I don't want to do! (laughs)

It's okay for adults to be that way, too.

Children teach us what is important.

The focus she has now that she has started on the path of an artist in earnest is amazing.

Do what you want to do,
do what you love, and keep doing it.

Think for yourself,
choose for yourself.

Beyond that, a world opens up
where you turn what you love into your work.

That is what I believe.

So, even without money in between,
we can just exchange our strengths to help each other with things we find difficult.

Things like kanji or calculations that she isn't learning in school right now
can be done by someone who is good at them
(which is something AI can do, after all).

She just needs to provide what she is good at to everyone.

I think we are gradually getting closer to that kind of world,
and by the time she becomes an adult,
it might be even more like that.

That is why for us adults,
saying things like
"In the future..."
or"When you grow up and enter society..."

is truly meaningless,

because it will be on a completely different dimension from our own time!!

So,
let us adults also join the children in
doing what makes us excited,
doing what we love,
and keep smiling more and more!!

Let's spread joyful vibrations!
After all, people gather where things seem fun♪

A way of life course, not just how-tos or know-how
Starting from the Autumn Equinox on 9/23
Re:start
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