What You Are Looking for is in the Library

by Michiko Aoyama

“In a world where you don’t know what will happen next, I just do what I can right now.”

What I do know is that there’s no need to panic, or do more than I can cope with right now. For the time being, I plan to simply get my life in order and learn some new skills, choosing from what’s available. I’ll prepare myself, like Guri and Gura gathering chestnuts in the forest. Because I never know when I might find my own giant egg.

There are so many things to do, but I won’t make the excuse that I have no time anymore. Instead, I will think about what I can do with the time I have. One day is going to become tomorrow.

“Life is one revelation after another. Things don’t always go to plan, no matter what your circumstances. But the flip side is all the unexpected, wonderful things that you could never have imagined happening. Ultimately it’s all for the best that many things don’t turn out the way we hoped. Try not to think of upset plans or schedules as personal failure or bad luck. If you can do that, then you can change, in your own self and in your life overall.”

For so long now I have been trying to walk forward, and only forward. Believing that life is a linear journey that stretches straight ahead of us. If I look sideways now, what will I see?

From now on, I intend to gather close all the things that are important to me. I will make my own anthology.