The Diary Of a Tired Japanese.

6. In which I whine about everything the Sun shines on.

I hate the fact that my country forces people to make decisions to their own doom.

I also hate the fact that that there is a virtue in my country that basically tells children,

'If you aren't the best, it means you aren't trying hard enough.'

I get it.
We're supposed to work hard, and I agree with that.
People who don't do anything but whine and complain can go to another country where they can whine all they want.
But people don't understand, that 'doing your best' varies by the person you're talking about.

If you force someone who's talented in singing to study about robotic engineering, you aren't going to get a Nobel prize out of them.
If you force a child to go to a 'good' school, to go to a 'good' university, just because you think that's what 'happiness' is all about, chances are you're going to be hated by them.

I understand, parents want the best for their child. They want them to lead a successful life, and having a job that pays well is definitely one of those.

But drilling that belief into a teenager's head?

Making them believe that if you aren't practically drowning in all the school work and club activities and cram school homework, you aren't 'doing your best'?

That is just utterly disgusting and downright shameful.

My mother is one of those people.
I don't mean that I'm complaining about my life. What happened has happened. Time doesn't come back. I'm happy right now, I'm one of the best students in my year, and while I didn't get into the best university in Japan, I got into one of the best.
I love my major, and studying about Law and Politics is fun for me.
I have a boyfriend who understands when I say I'm neck deep in my text books and I can't go to the movies with him.
I have a best friend that listens to me whine about nothing and everything and tells me to get a grip on myself and move on.
My father might not be my biological one but he treats me with respect and I love him like family.
I have a freaking dog that blows away every single negative thought I have when I look at him and he smiles that happy dog smile.

I have literally the perfect life.
My teacher told me that.

So why am I so tired of everything?

My mother was a lawyer, she went to Harvard Law School for crying out loud, she's super smart.
I respect her because she gave up everything for my sister and I to grow up, she had to deal with my dad for 14 years before having a divorce.

I get it, I'm supposed to do everything I can to pay her back. I'm not complaining.

But, sometimes I just get so tired.
So tired that the moment one of my favorite actors show up on the TV I burst into tears without even uttering a single sound.
Sometimes, I get so tired of working and pouring over books and listening to lectures and teaching my students, that when I go to sleep, it's like having 10 people yelling and whispering and punching and kicking and crying and shrieking in my head.

Sometimes, all of this happens not when I'm alone and crying my eyes out in my own room,
but when I'm halfway through a laugh in the evening with my friends.

When I was 16, one of the teachers in my school quit her job.
She was the kind of teacher that seemed to shout at every single mistake a student made, so naturally, being teenage girls, all of the students in my school pretty much hated her.
No, we didn't do any pranks on her.
My school isn't that kind of school, it isn't labeled as 'The best girls private school in Japan' for nothing.
When the students at my school don't like a teacher, we do one thing.
We become perfect.
None of us were late for school.
None of us forgot our homework.
None of us got bad grades on her tests.
None of us did anything that would have made her angry.
Simple.
Because we didn't want anything to do with her.
If she was going to nitpick everything we did, all we had to do was make sure that she had nothing to nitpick about.
It seemed that she wasn't happy about that.

The day she left our school, she spoke a few words.
How she felt she wasn't appreciated.
How she had a new dream.

It was all very boring.

But one thing she said, had all of us, including the other teachers freeze on the spot we were standing.

She said,
'Students should appreciate their teachers no matter what, because there were children in the world that didn't have that luxury.'

That is true.
She also said,

'Students shouldn't complain about everything because we should be grateful that we're even alive and healthy.'

Yes, those words came out of from a woman who had worked as a teacher for over 20 years.

Should we?
Should we be grateful of the food on our plates and just shut our mouths when we have a question?
Should we just be grateful that we get to be alive and be ashamed of ourselves when we think something like 'I don't know what to do with my future'?

Is that what we teach our children?

- Noise