Finally! I’m done with school. It really has been a long journey. Just so many things have happened. I’ve made all those beautiful memories with awesome friends.
Now, before moving into the new chapter, this would be a perfect timing to look back and evaluate what I’ve learned. (The order is irrelevant to the importance of each one).
1. Never stop learning
The main objective of going to school: Learning. Does that mean learning is over once I finished University?
The answer came from the dean of my University during his commencement speech.
“Now you are the ones who are going to lead this country, and the world. In the age of the computer, everything changes so quickly.
The truth of today might be proven wrong tomorrow. That is why you have to keep learning and stay humble.”
As he says, we have to keep learning because learning is the only thing that can make us stay humble, and more than that, keep us alive.
When we stop learning, we tend to fall into the illusion that we already know everything that needs to be known. And I’ve seen so many people who live with that illusion. And to my eyes, they are not “living” anymore. They’re done.
I don’t want to be like that. I want to stay open to new ideas, new challenges and new environments. I believe these are the things that will make me a better human being.
2. ‘Clean up your house before complaining about other’s’
This is something I’ve learned while I was reading a book called “12 rules of Life”.
So many times in our life, there are moments when we find a flaw in other people’s behaviour and we want to correct it.
Just hold back a little though, and look at yourself and ask; ‘Am I perfect?’
The important thing to remember is that no one’s perfect.
And if you see flaws in others too often, that probably means your ego is too high to see yourself objectively.
I had been like that. And to some extent, I am still like that. But I’m doing my best to challenge myself.
And in the process, I find myself being able to notice strength in other people. And that makes me like them more, respect them more. Eventually it brought us closer.
So this is the positive cycle. I can’t change others. But always I can change myself.
3. Consistency is the key
Consistency is the most valuable skillset that one can have.
When I started going to the University, I had many goals I wanted to achieve. And one of them was this:
I wanna be a reader.
So I started reading a book. Soon after I started, however, I found myself without reading for a month, 2 months or even a half year.
It was obvious that my project “be a reader” isn’t really working.
To solve this, I made a system that could force me to read, which was to promise myself that I read every time when I am on the train. This worked beautifully. Reading became my habit.
So I’ve learnt that the ultimate key for the consistency is to come up with a system that can maintain the behaviour that could achieve the goal.
As of now, I have 5 projects in operation that would help me achieve my goals in some years. Now sometimes those could make me feel like I’m doing chores. So I came up with the another idea. I started tracking the number of hours I’ve done the “chores”.
This made it possible to actually see the progress and motivate me to keep going.
Now I’ve been reading for 6 years. And I can say ‘I am a reader.’
Being consistent is tough. But it can be done by being a little creative.
4. Be honest
While studying chemistry, physics and psychology, one thing I’ve leaned is that the fact matters more than anything. You can’t cover up inconvenient truth to make your argument reasonable. It will reveal itself sooner or later, just like in the incident happened in Japan a few years ago.
And I stretched this idea to daily life too. If we all never cover up, always tell the truth, and stop lying to others, this world would become a much simpler place.
The problem is, it is not always easy to tell the truth. And people say “It has to be at the right moment.”
So what is the “right” moment? How do I know that?
In my opinion, there is no such thing. Rather, I think, I have to be in the “right relationship” with them.
To do that, I have to talk with them and discuss about the situation. Maybe what I see isn’t the true picture. Maybe there are some terrible things going on in their life to make them behave in that way.
And in the process, I could establish the trust relationship with them. And that is when I can judge if it is the right thing to say or not.
Truth can hurt us sometime. But if you could see that it’s coming from the trustful person, you’ll understand it, won’t you?
At least that was the case for me. I could see that the person’s intention was only to help me out.
And that’s who I wanna be. Trust is one of those things that money can’t buy.
5. Keep looking for “what’s funny in this situation?”
This might be the most valuable skill I’ve obtained in my life. This is the ability that has got me out of the worst situation. And this is the reason why I can say proudly and confidently “I can overcome any difficulties that to come in the future.”
Everyday is a challenge, in schools, in relationships, in friendships and in work. Those all things stress us, discourage us and make our stomach ache. In these time, we try to motivate ourselves and convince yourself that you’ll be fine, but more often not, it doesn’t work. Those are the situations that seem too desperate. You feel like there’s no way out. I had that kind of moment when I first started studying in Sweden. Basically, my expectation was too high to meet. I realized how terrible my English was and the future looked too dark.
The only way to get out of it, is to recognize that every situation has a potential to be funny. And when I looked at the situation objectively, everything became hilarious all of sudden. It was funny that I expected so much about studying in Sweden in the first place, it was funny that I had been thinking that my English sounded like natives, and it was damn hilarious that I was being depressed about the situation.
This way of thinking is so powerful. The things that stressed me so much in the past, is now just something that can make me laugh.
And as a result, I became super positive and optimistic person.
Now I welcome hardship even more. Hardship will give me the biggest laugh and it will also make me a better person too.
And btw, if you feel down right now, watch standup comedy! That’s how I obtained the comedic views. Here’s my recommendations:
Nate Bargatze: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRrWmIlkaGU
Kevin Hart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmIS_icNcLk
So these are the five most important things that I’ve learned.
As I move forward to the new chapter, I want to thank for all the people who helped me during my years in the college. I appreciate it.
Now I’m gonna go back to reading.
Nobuyuki Takizawa
Nobu’s blog 