Having too much of everything might not be advantageous.
In Japan, the term "hara hachi bun me" is used to describe eating until you're 80% full. Sachiaki Takamiya suggests that this principle can extend beyond food and be applied to various aspects of our lives. Rather than striving for perfection, it is beneficial to allow room for flexibility.
Creating room for relaxation
Sachiaki: First of all, about the perfection thing. So I talked about hara hachi bun me, which basically means eating up to 80% full. So when you become 80% full, you stop eating. It's more for dietary kind of guideline. But this can apply to other field as well.
We don't need to seek the optimal result like to reach 100%. But if you're 80% good, then it should be good. Then that gives you a mental space to play around a little bit. But if you're only trying to make everything perfect, that itself becomes stressful, or you become kind of tense.
But having this 20% space gives you a relaxation, and you can go with the flow. Because for people who are trying to be perfect, you usually have everything planned, you do everything according to your plan. So that means you have no space to be flexible to change your plan.
I mean, sometimes doing things according to plan is important, too. But we also need to do things with the flow as well. Because whatever happens in your life can be at the vantage to push you move to certain directions.
So for example, let's say that you have a plan to exercise, you go to the gym, and then your friend suddenly shows up. You usually say, ‘Oh, sorry, I can't see you now because I need to go to the gym. This is my schedule now.’ But you never know what this friend can bring.
Maybe by talking to him can give you some new insight, which will help your bio-hacking practice. Or maybe he will take you to a place where you meet another person who can help you with your career or something. So life is full of surprises. So we don't want to miss the spontaneity of our life.
Nick: Yeah, I agree totally. Routine is very helpful and structure is great. But yeah, I agree, having some flexibility to these often serendipitous opportunities or connecting with others, it's not a negative thing to break your routine to do something else every once in a while.
And I've kind of have this idea that sometimes I think that I really should give up drinking. But if I did that, it probably will be a healthy thing, but then it might mean, when I go out with friends, I don't drink, and I definitely want to drink.
And then that just might impact that the flow of the evening, you know, ‘Why are you not drinking, Nick.?’ So I think a bit of flexibility helps. And yeah, perfectionism doesn't really exist anyway. So we can let go, and as you mentioned, it can get quite stressful when you're so fixated on doing things in a certain way.