How do we find balance in an unbalanced world? Nick and Saori Okada explore this question and talk about the term hodo-hodo ni (just do enough): knowing when to know when your cup is full.
Nick: So another interesting point you raised when we were talking is a question: how do you find balance in an unbalanced world? And I think you've got a few things to share in relation to this.
Saori: Yes, back to our earlier point of how Japanese have such beautiful words that encapsulate what it means. I was thinking about this question, I was thinking of this word called hodo-hodo ni, and every day, people use this term, it's more like, you know, just hodo-hodo ni or everything you do just hodo-hodo ni.
Nick: Is it little by little?
Saori: Hodo-hodo ni means just do enough. That's really kind of what it means of being like, you don't go to extremes. And it's really about knowing when to know when your cup is full. And that is how I would answer this question. Because I think we were exploring how in Japan, people do live a hard life, there's no denying that.
I think that it is a result of the cultural practices that started off with the beautiful intention of working hard and having systems in place of doing things properly of how thinking for other people, they have the best intentions, but it's not hodo-hodo ni, it's more to the extreme.
And then the West, we could say perhaps, that they've taken individualism too far. I think you were saying that in the coaching world, even it's more about what have I done? What have I done? What have I done? And that's important, of course, you know, we must think about ourselves, but it's not at the expense of the collective.
So I think you could find balance by first taking a moment to pause and saying, “Okay, where am I in this range?” Then figuring out how you could be more hodo-hodo ni, because I think that's really the wisdom of not being in any extreme.