Please Be Careful of the Doors

It’s almost the end of my time here in Japan, just as it’s almost the end of 2023. Both of those things make it feel like I am entering a liminal space. In so many ways, what was will no longer be.

At the end of another year and a trip like this, it can feel easy and safe to return to what is known. To finally live my days without the ever-present uncertainty? Yes, please! That delicious pull to the familiar—to what has always been—is almost as undeniable as gravity.

If this trip has taught me anything, it’s that magic happens when I live differently, when I choose differently. When I am open and receptive, ready to see anew.

This was especially driven home to me as I rode the Shinkansen Bullet Train from Tokyo to Hiroshima on Saturday.

The last time I rode a Shinkansen was 12 years ago, and all I could think about was how so many things could go wrong. As we flew over the ground at over 200 miles an hour, I literally prayed that everyone had done their job well. Otherwise, it felt like I might be in fight scene from Batman, and it would be all kapow! and kablooey!

This time when I rode the Shinkansen, the most present emotion was not fear, but awe—at how many things had to go right for this to go right.

An engineering wonder like the bullet train doesn’t happen by accident. It took untold years of work and effort to make something this incredible happen. Plans had to be imagined, drawn, tested, built. Tracks had to be laid, mountains gutted. Not to mention steel for the tracks, cement for the barricades, electricity for the lights. The list of what an endeavor like this takes goes on and on.

As I rode the train a few days ago, I realized my two emotions (fear and awe) are like two doors standing side by side. We get to choose which door we open. Which world we step into—one that makes us afraid or one that makes us marvel.

Life happens. Shit happens. Magic happens (I cannot count the times it has happened for me here). And in the midst of all this, we have our days, and our days are made up of choices. Those choices can add up and become habits, and those habits can serve us. They can lead to wonder and excellence and purpose.

And how often our habits can feel as undeniable as train tracks. As if we have no choice. We have to go where they lead.

And we do . . . until we become aware. Oh, I’m on this train and I don’t want to go where it’s going. Or I am on this train and it feels as if it is going to crash any minute.

The more we open the door to fear the more there is to fear. The more we choose the door to awe and marvel and magic, the more magic we see.

There’s one last thing I couldn’t stop thinking about as we shot across the countryside in our white steel snake. We were going so fast, life was a literal blur, and there were times I got nauseous. It was as if my body knew this was not the pace it should be going.

I was reminded of the neighborhood in Tokyo I walk through nearly every morning. There’s a store there that sells bristle brushes for scrubbing. I believe the company has been around for hundreds of years, and their mascot is a turtle.

I bought a water bottle from them. And I might go back and buy a t-shirt, because their slogan is, “Slow, so what?”

I could use that reminder in my life, especially right now.

When we live in a liminal space, or a bardo as the Buddhists call it, it can be easy to rush through it, to get to the certainty on the other side. But these last few days here in Japan and these last few days of 2023, what would it be like to choose to live slow?

To choose to open the door to awe?

To choose to celebrate all the things that are going right and to build a life of wonders?

Because before we know it, the train will pull up to the station.

p.s. This is my last post for 2023. Have an incredible holiday season, and thanks for all your support!