To become a professional footballer,
I left Japan and came to Brazil.
I wanted to become a better player.
I wanted to turn pro.
I wanted to see how far I could go.
I wanted to discover a world I didn't know.
Looking back at my life in Japan,
I think I was always looking beyond the present.
When I get better.
When I achieve more.
When I become a pro.
When my dream comes true.
Somewhere beyond all that,
there must be a happier life than the one I have now.
That's what I believed.
And so,
rather than what I already had,
what I didn't have yet seemed much bigger.
Results.
Recognition.
Success.
Dreams.
I focused only on the things I wanted to gain in the future.
But
leaving Japan far behind to chase those things
made me see something else instead.
It was
everything I had always called ordinary.
Having my family nearby.
Being able to see my friends whenever I wanted.
Being able to see the people I love.
Being able to use my own language
to say exactly how I feel.
Being able to eat what I like.
Having somewhere safe to come home to.
Being able to walk alone at night
without having to be overly watchful of everything around me.
Trains and buses arriving almost on time.
Clean streets.
Being able to go to a convenience store
and find almost everything I need.
Turning on a tap
and using the water without a second thought.
Being able to ask someone for help in Japanese
when I'm in trouble.
Taken one by one,
they seem like very small things.
When I lived in Japan,
I wasn't going through every day feeling grateful for them either.
Because
they were normal.
People rarely call something happiness
when it has been there since they were born.
After coming to Brazil,
I encountered so many differences.
The language is different.
The culture is different.
The way people relate to one another is different.
The sense of time is different.
The atmosphere in the streets is different.
Football is different.
What people value is different too.
In the beginning,
those differences often left me confused.
Many times, I thought,
“In Japan, it would be like this.”
But
the longer I lived in Brazil,
the more my thinking gradually changed.
Just because something is different from Japan
doesn't mean it's wrong.
Brazil has
so many good things that are unique to Brazil.
People are close to each other.
Even strangers strike up friendly conversations.
Even when we can't communicate perfectly,
there are people who try their best to understand.
Many people place enormous value on time with family and friends.
They get together,
talk,
laugh,
put on music,
eat,
and play football.
They seem to have such a good time
doing nothing particularly special.
I saw that again and again.
And I
began to wonder about something.
What exactly determines happiness?
Of course,
I'm not going to make some easy claim
that Brazilians are happier than Japanese people.
Everyone has their own worries,
and even people who seem to be smiling
have struggles I know nothing about.
I think that's just as true of Japanese people.
So
I'm not trying to decide which country's people are happier.
It's just that
since I started living in Brazil,
something has struck me as curious.
In Japan,
there are more things that make everyday life convenient.
Transport is well organized.
The streets are clean,
and there are many places where you feel safe.
Service is attentive to detail.
It's easy to get the things you want.
There are genuinely so many systems
that make everyday life easier.
Since coming to Brazil,
I've realized again and again
how easy Japan was to live in.
And yet,
when I watch the people I've met in Brazil,
there are moments when I think
they're much better at enjoying the present than I am.
It's certainly not
that they have everything.
There are inconveniences in their lives.
There are difficult things too.
Even so,
they enjoy time with their family.
They laugh with their friends.
They enjoy music.
They enjoy football.
With the people right there beside them,
they enjoy this very moment.
Of course,
that doesn't apply to every Brazilian.
But at least
among the people I've met,
there are many who are very good at enjoying what they have now.
Watching them
made me turn my attention back to myself.
When I lived in Japan,
perhaps I believed
I was missing something I needed to be happy.
If only I became better.
If only I earned more recognition.
If only I achieved more.
If only I had more money.
If only I could become closer to my ideal self.
It felt as if happiness
lay somewhere beyond all that “more.”
As soon as you get one thing,
you want the next.
When you achieve a goal,
you set your sights higher.
There's nothing wrong with that in itself.
Ambition
allows us to grow.
I, too,
want to keep aiming higher.
But
if I keep placing the conditions for happiness
somewhere in the future,
when will I ever get to be happy?
When I turn pro.
When I reach a higher league.
When I can earn money.
When I play for Japan.
Even if those dreams come true,
surely beyond them
there will be another new “more.”
Perhaps human beings
are very good
at finding what they don't have.
But
perhaps we're surprisingly bad
at seeing what we already do have.
Since coming to Brazil,
one big thing has changed in me.
It's this:
I've started to believe
that what you have
and whether you can feel happy
aren't necessarily the same thing.
Of course,
I think money matters.
Safety matters too.
A livable environment,
education,
healthcare,
and the systems that support our lives all matter.
I have no intention of dismissing a difficult life
with a simple,
“Happiness is just a state of mind.”
I have no doubt that our circumstances
affect how hard life is.
But
improving our circumstances
doesn't automatically make us happier.
No matter how much we have,
if we count only what we don't have,
we'll always feel something is missing.
On the other hand,
even if life isn't perfect,
there's someone to share a meal with today.
There's someone to laugh with.
There's somewhere to come home to.
We're well today.
If we can notice those things,
perhaps even the same day
can look different.
Coming to Brazil
taught me how fortunate Japan is as a country.
And at the same time,
I realized
that living in fortunate circumstances
and feeling that you are fortunate
aren't the same thing.
I went abroad because I wanted to see the world,
but here in Brazil,
I feel as though I discovered Japan for the first time too.
When I lived in Japan,
I thought I knew the country.
But
when you've always been inside something,
there are things you can't see.
Like a fish in water
that never thinks about the water.
Only after leaving Japan
did I see its convenience.
Its safety.
Its cleanliness.
How good the food was.
I learned that a culture of keeping promises and being on time
isn't the same everywhere in the world.
And
I learned how precious it is to speak Japanese.
When you live abroad,
even if you can manage a simple conversation,
sometimes you can't say
what you truly want to say exactly as you mean it.
You want to make a joke.
You want to communicate the subtle nuances.
You want people to understand your feelings
just as you experience them.
It's all there in your head,
but you can't put it into words.
When that happens,
even those hours of silly conversations
I used to have with friends in Japan
start to feel like a real luxury.
Whatever you say, they understand.
You laugh about old times.
You get excited over nothing.
Back then,
I never once called
those moments
“happy times.”
It was the same with my family.
When I lived in Japan,
I thought, “I'll see them again.”
If we don't talk today,
we can talk tomorrow.
If we don't eat together today,
we can do it another time.
The same was true of my friends.
If we can't meet today,
we'll just meet some other time.
It felt as if
there would always be another time.
But
when you live far away from Japan,
wanting to see someone
doesn't mean you can see them today.
Only then
did I discover what I really missed.
It wasn't some extraordinary memory.
It was eating at the same table as my family.
The voices coming from inside the house.
Laughing with friends without a care in the world.
The usual road.
The usual shop.
The usual view.
“Good morning.”
“Have a good day.”
“Welcome home.”
“See you tomorrow.”
It was all those things
that had seemed utterly ordinary.
Perhaps
I'd spent all that time imagining happiness
as something much too spectacular.
Making a dream come true.
Succeeding.
Getting the things you want.
Being recognized by others.
Of course,
those are forms of happiness too.
I also
want to achieve my dream.
But
I think happiness may have another,
much quieter form.
You wake up in the morning
and you're well again today.
The people you love are alive.
You have food to eat.
You have somewhere safe to come home to.
You can laugh with someone.
And when night comes,
you can say,
“See you tomorrow.”
That's all.
It probably
wouldn't make an interesting social media post.
“Today I ate with my family.”
“I talked with my friends.”
“The day ended without anything happening.”
To somebody else,
a day like that
might look like a day when nothing happened.
But
one day you may find yourself desperately missing
that day when nothing happened.
We're quick
to notice what we don't have.
I want more money.
I want a better job.
I want to get better.
I want more recognition.
I want a better life.
I want to be happier.
But
we get used to what we do have.
Having family.
Having friends.
Being healthy.
Having somewhere to come home to.
Being able to hear the voice of someone we love.
Being able to speak our own language.
Another ordinary day coming to an end.
The moment it's gone,
we understand how much it meant.
But while it's still there,
it can be astonishingly hard to see.
And so, lately,
the meaning of gratitude
has changed a little for me too.
Gratitude
isn't only saying thank you
when someone does something special for you.
It's not taking for granted
what's right in front of you now.
I think
that is gratitude too.
Of course,
I'm not saying,
“Be satisfied with what you have and stop challenging yourself.”
If I personally
thought that way,
I wouldn't have come all the way to Brazil.
I want to keep chasing my dream.
I want to get better.
I want to go further.
I want to see things I've never seen before.
I want to challenge myself.
But
I'm a little different
from who I was in Japan.
Back then,
I looked only at things far away.
Now,
while looking into the distance,
I also want to cherish what's close to me.
Chasing a dream
and noticing the happiness you already have
aren't opposites.
You can want more
and still value the present.
You can work hard to achieve a dream
without treating today—the day you're living that dream's pursuit—
as something disposable.
Because
even the life I'm living now
will one day be a past I can't return to.
Even this difficult time in Brazil,
seen through my eyes a few years from now,
might become a time
I wish I could go back to.
When I think of it that way,
perhaps there's really no such thing
as an unremarkable day
in our lives.
If right now
every day feels like the same repetition,
and you're bored by it,
I don't think you have to force yourself
to believe,
“I'm happy.”
There are painful things.
There are realities you want to change.
There are days you want to run away.
But
just once,
I'd like you to look at what's already in your everyday life.
Your familiar home.
Your familiar meals.
Your familiar friends.
Your familiar family.
Your familiar school.
Your familiar work.
Your familiar way home.
Those familiar voices.
That familiar “Good morning.”
That familiar “Welcome home.”
That familiar “See you tomorrow.”
Right now,
it may all seem so ordinary
that it looks worthless.
But
there is no guarantee anywhere
that all of it will last forever.
It was only after leaving Japan
that I finally understood that.
So,
if I can,
I'd rather not wait until something is gone
to realize,
“That was happiness.”
While it's still here,
I'd like to notice it, even just a little.
I
came to Brazil because I wanted to see the world.
And I really did
discover a world I hadn't known in Japan.
I discovered a different culture.
Different values.
Different ways of living.
I met people
I would never have met if I hadn't come to Brazil.
My world
has unquestionably become bigger.
But
after coming so far, what I finally discovered
wasn't some answer in a distant place.
Instead,
it was something that had been right beside me all along.
Eating with my family.
Having silly conversations with friends.
The people I love being well.
Being able to sleep in peace.
Being able to laugh in my own language.
And
another day ending without anything going wrong.
I
used to think that to become happy,
I needed to get something more.
But
here in Brazil, I wonder.
Maybe
we aren't missing something
we need to be happy.
Maybe
we just haven't noticed the happiness that's already here.
I'll keep chasing my dream.
I'll go to the places I want to go.
I'll keep aiming higher.
But
I want to be someone who doesn't become so absorbed in seeking happiness far away
that he overlooks
the happiness here today.
When I look back on my life one day,
I don't want that to be the first time I realize,
“I was happy back then.”
If I can,
I want to notice it now,
while I'm still living those days.
Because perhaps
at the very moment we're living the happiest times of our lives,
we simply call them ordinary days.