Ganbatte! The Japanese concept of grit
a postcard from our family's trip to Japan
We arrived in Tokyo in the evening, already confused enough about our time zones that it was no problem to fall asleep soon time after a sushi dinner. My last trip to Japan (Tokyo only) was nearly twenty years ago, when I worked for Microsoft. This time, along with my family, we arranged points of interest for our varied ages, and yesterday we left the metropolitan areas for the mountains and coast.
On the flight over the ocean, I finished the book I’d brought along— Silence, the deeply moving and difficult novel by Shusako Endo, and so in Kyoto was excited to stumble across a bookstore with a small English selection about Japan. I picked up The Pillow Book, the thousand year old book by a court gentlewoman, Sei Shonagon. It turns out that most writing was done by women during the Heian period, a characteristic perhaps unmatched in any culture anywhere in history, and perhaps a perfect discovery for the last days of Womens History Month. And then on a lark, the book Ganbatte! by the not-Japanese Albert Liebermann— who has lived for years in Japan.
In an earlier newsletter, I wrote about ikigai relating to purpose and meaning— and more to come on that— but ganbatte is about grit, at least in part, and new to me, and so I thought I’d share it with you.
In the forward, Hector Garcia writes about visiting the island of Okinawa, where its people are famously long lived, and after a second visit to a gentleman who had turned 108, he asked what his secret was.
“Ganbatta!” the man said, which the author translates as “I made an effort and always did the best I could.”
And then the man said: “Mainichi ganbattemasu,” or “I made an effort every day.”
The Japanese mantra is “nana korobi ya oki,” says Garcia-- fall seven times and get up eight.
And so— if you need a boost to your grit factor today, try on “ganbatte!” for size.
It is a fitting mantra for a deeply gracious people.
The newsletter will be back in two weeks.
With love and to your grit,
Shannon
I love this! I remember in my early days of being a mother, watching a military wife who had just had her third tell me one of the best pieces of parenting advice I ever received. She said the secret to successful child rearing is “you just have to outlast them.” When I read the fall down seven times get up eight, that’s what it made me think of. All the times when my kids got up in the middle of the night and and came into our room and I was tempted to give in or get mad, but each time I walked them back to their bed and tucked them in once again. Ganbatte! Have a wonderful time with your family in Japan. I can’t wait to hear more about It.