Complicated…

Good morning from Haneda airport

I sit here writing this as I risk making myself nearly late for yet another flight, and as always... totally worth it~ 

I am heading North for snow! There is one more livestream location that I wanted to hit last month, that I just never got to, and so this is my start-of-year stretch to hit up that one last place!

As I am sure you can understand, over the last 2 years I have developed a very complicated relationship with the concept of "travel" (as I am sure many of us have).

On one hand, I have spent 2 years (hopefully) proving to myself that I am equipped with the sense and skills to travel and stay healthy. 

And in all fairness, I can attribute a lot of that to the fact that I have gone very far out of my way to do the majority of all work and travel by renting cars, and camping out. 

But this has become a double edged sword....

OOPS!! Almost missed that flight lol
Just landed and on my way into the city now~ 

The double edged sword being that now that I am using things like trains and airplanes to travel, it's honestly quite difficult to get excited about it. Arriving at an airport used to be the most exciting thing to me. And while I still love it, its become a very complicated experience. 

I travel to share Japan with those who can't be here. As much as I love this country, I feel a responsibility to this task, and feel that I take it quite seriously. Which means I feel the need to make sure I still take every precaution possible to ensure that I remain healthy and safe. Not just for the continuation of content, but because I represent a subset of people here in Japan, and if I were to get sick during times like this, it reflects on the creators around me.

Now some will say I am overthinking it, and that is ok. Because I would rather overthink, and be over cautious, than to look back and think I should have tried just a little harder.

All of this said, it also impacts how I create my content. No excited airport scenes, or scenes of me talking as I walk through crowds. Filming mostly at weird hours just so I can talk comfortably without people around.... and the list goes on

But this has actually been weirdly positive in many ways

Restrictions breed creativity -- This has been the biggest lesson for me over the last 2 years.

In fact there is an entire book about this topic by Jeremy Leung for anyone interested. I stumbled on it recently and it has made it's way into my reading list.

It has become more difficult to create content showing this country and bringing people to the point where they feel like they are here with me. And at a time where this has been my goal more than it ever has before.

If you told me 2 years ago, that my usual filming style would be restricted and limited for years to come, I might have assumed the end of the channel. And honestly when the pandemic hit... I thought it might be.
But I also knew that I had so much gratitude for those who are here for what I create, that there was no way that I could possibly give up.

I feel that I do my best to share this gratitude. But as this gratitude forces me to learn, grow, look inwards, and develop new skill and mindsets, I also find myself wanting to share these.

The idea of limitations breeding creativity is not a new one to me. In fact you can hear it popping up in livestreams from well over a year ago. But it is one that has become a core part of my work and my style as a creator and one of those things that I think we can all serve to hear about every now and then.

It is super easy to get discouraged lately. Every time we think we see the light through the clouds, and hope that the blue sky is around the corner.... we find ourselves somehow heading once again for rain... entire lives have been put on hold (or worse). And many wonder if they will ever have the life that they once dreamed of... The life they worked so hard until now for.

And inside of all of this, my thought here at the beginning of 2022, is not all that different from my thoughts back at the start of 2021;
If you are still here... if you have come THIS far, and are still standing, and healthy... after enduring the past 2 years... you are doing amazing.
And while I am sure that as you read this, the idea of embracing the current limitations has been in your mind for a long time, and probably a part of your daily life by now, I wanted to offer a few words of encouragement and say that complicated is much more likely to lead you to the path of happiness and success than it is to do the opposite. You have come this far, and you will come out the other end of everything happening right now, as a much stronger and much more capable person.

Whenever I put something like this into words, its really more for me than for anyone else. As I have said in podcasts before, I almost hate putting these messages out there. Always feeling they are at the risk of being condescending, patronizing, or obvious... But I am sure that you know by now that this is never the intention
and every now and then, we could all go for a little dose of obvious lol.

So why now? Why this? While the safe guess might be just a little morning travel anxiety (lol), the real answer traces back about 2 weeks to a post I saw by a friend on instagram.

A friend who has always hated winter (they live in Canada, if this helps explain anything lol).

And like many people, they often dug in their heels indoors during the winter season, avoided going outdoors, and just waited for the weather to warm up a bit.
I will admit that I have been guilty of this myself.

But in their post, they mentioned how the limitations on life lately had pushed them to get get outdoors more last year to balance out spending most of the year inside. And talked about how the only way to do this was to truly embrace winter. To accept that it was cold, and to lean into that.
They talked about how after doing that for an entire Canadian winter, they found themselves a lot happier throughout the winter season. Colder for sure... but happier.

And while I thought it might be nice to follow suit here this year, it also got me thinking of everything that we have talked about here today. 

And so as I sit here at the front of the train, staring out the train windows into a literal snowstorm blizzard of white, I find myself smiling thinking of how ironic and fitting it is that I cant see anything ahead... Storms are like that.
But storms also clear in time