Appreciation for random things in my life

A few weeks ago I wrote about how i should really be living in the moment more and appreciatiating both the people in my life and my five senses, multitasking less and not constantly allowing myself to to numb.

I find it surprisingly challenging. It’s not hard to do at all, but to maintain it and, even more, to remember to maintain it is the trickiest part.

Any moment I am reminded to be aware, I can let go of all the heaviness and tune out all the noise. I just need to create more reminders. It’s tricky because many things I do require concentration and to set a time limit or even a time to begin can be a little disturbing to the task at hand.

I think more specifically what I want to improve is my ability to switch and out of that meditative state. Being able to turn on a dime. Total awareness of my senses and everything around me combined with appreciative medative bliss, and then going back to work mode, being able to juggle different tasks and going into “the zone” state to do the best work I can do.

In one state I am aware of every second, and in the other, things just kind of happen and I am only aware of them aftwr the fact. True Artists get it. True art comes from somewhere else, we merely become vessels for it to express itself. That’s a discussion for another day.

The main point is to get the brain and the heart working together, weaving my experience. This is some high level shit so I appreciate myself for being able to work on it.

I feel it as I write this. I am in both my brain and my heart, kind of channeling and also very aware of whats around me. If something dosturbs me, I won’t be upset, it was just something that I invited to streer my thoughts in a direction more in lines with what I want to express and I want to be.

I am thankful for all the people in my life. Here are just a few at random, the ones I will interact with today:

I appreciate my friend who is visiting for 3 months. I get a little jealous of him for being able to balance his translation work with such amazing personal projects and travel. Although our around faith and the universe are completely opposite, he’s got great energy and he inspires me, as his life is the closest to the life I want to live. His work style helped me to become succesful as a freelancer. If it werent for the one year visa pattenr I am in. He is just a great guy and a great role model in a way.

I appreciate my first student of the day. He is a middle aged man who studies extremely dilligently and gives me a lot of confidence in my ability to teach. He tests me with difficult questions but he also understands the point of my free flowing teaching style. I feel like I am my best self as a teacher when I am with him, because he really makes use of my skills. That’s why I still teach him at my older prices and go on the train to find him while most students I only teach at my station or online.

I appreciate the student who is helping me sponsor myself in Japan of course. His rough way of speaking and the way he dresses give him a negative image in this society but he helps people unconditionally and he does good work for the community. People get caught up on his demeanor but if you meet his wife and children, you know he must have a good heart to maintain such a cool and loving family.

I appreciate the visa consultant who I will meet today who is making sure I do everything within the law (despite trying to work here in an unconventional way) and he will help me get a 3 year visa and then a 5 year and permanent visa as quickly as possible. He taught me a lot about how immigration works, how companies here function and helped make smooth a lot of red tape.

I appreciate my neighborhood. Despite being way to catering of alcoholism, I have managed to live a healthy life here. I just order a chai or lassi or coconut milk or oolong tea instead of alcohol. The friends I’ve made here are not extremely close but they give me a strong sense of community, a feeling that I am surrounded by allies, rather than enemies. We don’t see eye to eye on everything but they are brave people who live life the way they believe in living in, despite all the hurdles they’ve faced.

Next week will be a kind of low-budget, bare bones festival to invite artist friends from other countries into our neighborhood. Itll probably be a lot of gritty punk rock and noise, perhaps a little hard for some of my friends who are still working regular jobs and not surrounded by artists all the time, but I love being connected to people who are pushing at the edge of the collective consciousness. I hope that I can bring my own vibes to the event, I may be the only one there not drunk, and probably one of the few with friends on the opposite end of the political spectrum but I want to onnext with these people as much as I can and maybe even build a bridge for some people who are scared of loud music and sitting on the street to socialize with strangers.

I appreciate the restaruants near my house. I always complain that my neighborhood caters too much to drinking and not enough to good food because many all day spotd have become nighttime only and some menues have been simplified, losing their best dishes (curry, pasta, and ramen now rule supreme because the first two are easy and everyone here loves ramen). But this is unfair to compalin about. There are still 7 or 8 places we go regularly that have decent food, al very very different. We may have to check their irregular schedules carefully, but it’s not as if we have no choices. In fact, our favorite cafe is open til 3:30 for lunch, and hour and a half after most lunch spots and they have raw tuna, chopped miso pork, mexican rice, jerk chicken and omelette saute, NOT BAD!

Truth be told, we eat like kings and queens in comparison to most people around us because we prioritize food over alcohol. You save a lot of money when you don’t drink here. We are also lucky to live in a part of the world where eating out is almost as cheap as eating at home. (Or maybe i should say eating at home is almost as expensive as eating out 😆)

In fact I am thankful for all the alcoholics in this country because they help keep the price of eating out down. Since many people spend much more on drinks, the price of food is kept down in order to attract customers. If people didn’t drink so much, the choices would drop dramatically and thr prices of food at a restaurant might double. So it’s great that there are different kinds of people with different priorities.

I am thankful for this community and both Ecency and Leo for their succesful break into short form content. Leo Threads and Ecency waves both allow me to meet bew people at Hive even when I am too busy to browse posts. I think both will help onboarding and will create some healthy competition for each other so I will use both actively.

I am thankful for al my students who trust me enough to keep me fed and housed despite my prices which are not the cheapest, but definetly reasonable.

I appreciate crypto, especially Hive and Bitcoin. They’ve helped me build a safety net for myself so I can start to live life the way I want woth fewer worries. Taking 10% profits would allow me to survive for a little while even if my regular income was insufficient and not break this safety net.

I am thankful that there are no difficult people in my life. If anyone is diffiuclt, they arent being diffiuclt to me. Almost everyone I know is either pleasant or neutral.

I have very few problems and all my problems are working towards solutions.

My health is improving.

My financial system is improving.

I am working towards my dreams. I still don’t know how far each landmark is but the exciting parts get closer and closer and I am able to enjoy the journey more and more.