I keep track of all the games, books, shows, and movies I experience.
(It’s a long list. I’m a bookworm-cinephile-gamer.)
And I don’t just watch a show, I find three podcasts analyzing it too. I don’t just play a video game, I watch YouTube deep dives into its lore and development.
I was looking back over my last few months of content, and I found a pattern:
- I recently rewatched Sophia Coppola’s Lost in Translation.
- I started rereading Shogun and finished watching Shogun on FX/Hulu (incredible!).
- I listened to a 4-hour episode of the Acquired podcast on the origins of Nintendo (stretching back to the 1800s!).
- I’ve been going through the entirety of Studio Ghibli’s animated film collection (10 films and counting).
- I just watched Perfect Days. Waterworks.
Subconsciously, I fell in love with Japan. I know, what a nerd cliché!
This became all too clear to me when I stumbled across something two months back, and I can’t stop thinking about it.
I found a philosophy that perfectly describes the updates I’ve made to my personal life philosophy and how I’ve changed my life over the past handful of years. I guess you could say this philosophy has set up a Tea House in Steve’s brain, and I think it’s here to stay.
If you’re a perfectionist, or struggle with “but after x, then I can do y” thinking, it might help you too.
Wabi Sabi: the Beauty of Imperfect Impermanence
In his book Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence, Andrew Juniper describes the concept as “serene melancholy.”
I can’t think of two words I’ve ever felt more connected to.
Wabi-sabi is an aesthetic Japanese Zen art philosophy that finds beauty in the understanding that everything is imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.
To embrace Wabi Sabi requires the ability to reflect on the fact that change is the only constant, nothing lasts forever, and perfection is unattainable.
You can find its influence in nearly every aspect of Japanese culture: tea ceremonies, bonsai, rock gardens, haiku poetry, flower arrangement, ceramics and more.
My favorite implementation of Wabi Sabi is “kintsugi”:
When a piece of pottery is cracked, it is repaired with gold-infused lacquer, highlighting the crack and its imperfections rather than hiding them. It shows the bowl has been well used. The cracks tell a story, and it actually makes the bowl more valuable.
Although Wabi-Sabi is usually associated with art and nature…
I’ll be damned if it’s not an incredible life philosophy too.
Reflecting on my 20s and early 30s, I realized I lived a life the opposite of Wabi Sabi:
I spent years trying to create a perfectly optimized schedule. I wanted to find the perfect workout and share the perfect diet. I tried to optimize my work schedule, but I also tried to optimize my free time and even my sleep. Everything needed to be optimized.
Professionally, I ran myself ragged trying to build Nerd Fitness, putting much of my life on hold “until I was done.” I told myself “I just have to reach [arbitrary metric], then I can slow down.”
Unsurprisingly, the closer I got to optimized perfection, the more life would push back.
No matter how hard I tried to control everything, no matter how high I set my expectations, life kept happening. I responded with surprise, indignation, and frustration...and then went back to work doing the same thing!
It took 11 years of running into a brick wall to finally realize the “optimized carefree life” I sought didn’t exist. I was never going to "get there", because my brain just kept moving the goalposts. That I would never have time to get it all done, because there were simply too many things to do. It was literally impossible.
This is when I finally found the thing I was looking for:
Acceptance.
Once I stopped expecting “normal” to be normal, I learned to operate in the chaos.
Once I stopped trying to do everything, I could make progress on something.
Once I stopped trying to optimize life, I could start living it.
And that has made all the difference.
Wabi Sabi Wellness
I’ve been writing newsletters to the Nerd Fitness audience for 15 years.
In that time, I’ve tried my best to help nerds get healthy while also surviving the chaos of modern life.
Honestly, I experience true joy when I help people understand what’s going on in their minds instead of just what goes in their workouts or on their plates.
This is why Wabi-Sabi has connected with me so deeply.
Remember, it’s a reflection on the beauty of:
- Impermanence
- Imperfection
- Incompletion
Here’s how we can apply this to our personal wellness journey:
We can accept that we’re always in a state of change.
We can celebrate the fact that we are imperfect humans, with flaws and bumps and bruises and scars. These things make us who we are. They show that we’ve lived a life.
We can appreciate the fact that nothing lasts forever, and it’s on us to develop awareness and acceptance, and then act accordingly.
And knowing all of this, we can be better informed how we choose to spend our limited time and attention on this planet:
- We can choose to stop chasing cleanses and “30-day detoxes.” Temporary changes create temporary results. If we never get to be “done,” if we’re always changing, then we need to adjust how we think about diets or sprints. It probably means small daily changes we can stick with.
- We can stop expecting perfect adherence to a diet, because we know perfection is a trap and an impossible standard. Perfection is also procrastination in disguise. So, rather than getting disappointed that we can’t be perfect, we can build imperfection into our expectations. Eating McDonalds with our kids does not ruin our week; it’s simply a choice we made for one meal. Who cares if we “break the chain?”
- We can appreciate that we never “arrive” and we never get to be “done.” Our only option is to enjoy each season, and each step of the journey. We can stop saying “I can be happy once I lose the weight” or “I’ll be happy once I reach XYZ goal,” because we never get there. Our brains will just move the goalposts. You’re worthy today, and you deserve happiness today. Don’t forget this!
Let’s all be a bit more Wabi Sabi today, eh?
There’s beauty in imperfection, so let’s stop chasing perfection.
The only constant is change, so let’s stop trying to hold back the tide.
And if the only guarantee is that none of us get out alive, we might as well enjoy today.
(Oh, and go watch Shōgun. It’s amazing).
-Steve
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