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August 31 - September 7, 2025
This Japanese concept, which translates roughly as “the happiness of always being busy,” is like logotherapy, but it goes a step beyond.
One of the most common sayings in Japan is “Hara hachi bu,” which is repeated before or after eating and means something like “Fill your belly to 80 percent.”
There is much wisdom in the classic saying “mens sana in corpore sano” (“a sound mind in a sound body”):
Presented with new information, the brain creates new connections and is revitalized. This is why it is so important to expose yourself to change, even if stepping outside your comfort zone means feeling a bit of anxiety.
Our neurons start to age while we are still in our twenties. This process is slowed, however, by intellectual activity, curiosity, and a desire to learn.
antibodies had reacted to stress the same way they react to pathogens, activating the proteins that trigger an immune response. The problem is that this response not only neutralizes harmful agents, it also damages healthy cells, leading them to age prematurely.
Adrenaline raises our respiratory rate and pulse and prepares our muscles for action, getting the body ready to react to perceived danger, while cortisol increases the release of dopamine and blood glucose, which is what gets us “charged up” and allows us to face challenges.
stress is an easily identifiable condition that not only causes anxiety but is also highly psychosomatic, affecting everything from our digestive system to our skin.
The central premise of this stress-reduction method is focusing on the self: noticing our responses, even if they are conditioned by habit, in order to be fully conscious of them. In this way, we connect with the here and now and limit thoughts that tend to spiral out of control.
Spending too much time seated at work or at home not only reduces muscular and respiratory fitness but also increases appetite and curbs the desire to participate in activities.
Get the right amount of sleep. Seven to nine hours is good, but any more than that makes us lethargic.
the people who live the longest have two dispositional traits in common: a positive attitude and a high degree of emotional awareness.
“Well, in logotherapy the patient sits up straight and has to listen to things that are, on occasion, hard to hear.”
“In psychoanalysis, the patient lies down on a couch and tells you things that are, on occasion, hard to say.”
It helps you find reasons to live.
Logotherapy pushes patients to consciously discover their life’s purpose in order to confront their neuroses.
“He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.”
Existential crisis, on the other hand, is typical of modern societies in which people do what they are told to do, or what others do, rather than what they want to do.
Many Western forms of therapy focus on controlling or modifying the patient’s emotions. In the West, we tend to believe that what we think influences how we feel, which in turn influences how we act. In contrast, Morita therapy focuses on teaching patients to accept their emotions without trying to control them, since their feelings will change as a result of their actions.
Morita therapy is not meant to eliminate symptoms; instead it teaches us to accept our desires, anxieties, fears, and worries, and let them go.
Accept your feelings. If we have obsessive thoughts, we should not try to control them or get rid of them. If we do, they become more intense.
“Hello, solitude. How are you today? Come, sit with me, and I will care for you.”
recovery will come on its own. We should focus instead on the present moment, and if we are suffering, on accepting that suffering.
Through these reflections, we stop identifying others as the cause of our problems and deepen our own sense of responsibility.
the experience of being completely immersed in what we are doing. Csikszentmihalyi called this state “flow,” and described it as the pleasure, delight, creativity, and process when we are completely immersed in life.
“the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”
The Seven Conditions for Achieving Flow
Activities that are too easy lead to apathy.
something aligned with our abilities but just a bit of a stretch, so we experience it as a challenge.
“a happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell on the future.”
Even those who claim to be good at multitasking are not very productive. In fact, they are some of the least productive people.
When we say we’re multitasking, what we’re really doing is switching back and forth between tasks very quickly.
if we continually ask our brains to switch back and forth between tasks, we waste time, make more mistakes, and remember less of what we’ve done.
Other studies indicate that working on several things at once lowers our productivity by at least 60 percent and our IQ by more than ten points.
the key is always having a meaningful challenge to overcome in order to maintain flow.
In fact, one of the things we learn in the practice of meditation is not to worry about anything that flits across our mental screen. The idea of killing our boss might flash into our mind, but we simply label it as a thought and let it pass like a cloud, without judging or rejecting it. It is only a thought—one of the sixty thousand we have every day, according to some experts.
Don’t worry about the outcome—it will come naturally. Happiness is in the doing, not in the result.
“The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.”2
the present is all that exists, and it is the only thing we can control.
Instead of searching for beauty in perfection, we should look for it in things that are flawed, incomplete.
A complementary Japanese concept is that of ichi-go ichi-e, which could be translated as “This moment exists only now and won’t come again.”
Wabi-sabi teaches us to appreciate the beauty of imperfection as an opportunity for growth.
“Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.”
Stop regretting the past and fearing the future. Today is all you have. Make the most of it. Make it worth remembering.
