Tuesday, September 28, 2010

The Fall Comes


Looking at the above picture, I feel the fall has come. The man in the picture who harvests rice for a festival is, with all due respect, our emperor. (The picture is from Jiji press.)

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Money is Important, But...

In some major countries like the US, Germany and here Japan, it is not easy to get a new and good job. Many people fear that they will have no job and lower pay. Some of them may also fear that they will have no more moderate and stable life.

Everyone hopes that he or she will have a good job. What I mean by 'a good job' is, of course, high-paid job.

However, some people may say that money is not so important as we expect in our life. There are many different views on that, but to live a healthy life in our modern society, making money should be considered first like this, "how much can I earn by working for your company?"

Here in Japan, maybe, in some other countries, there's a saying: "well fed, well bred". When surfing the web, I found another saying, "manners and money makes a gentleman", "poverty is an enemy to good manners."

Our job or career should be always our major concern in our life and when thinking about living a good life not to feel poverty, we must rethink of our current job and career, "will we be able to keep it for long?".

Good job depends on what we think as a good job, but how much we earn is always first concern and we can't tell a lie on it like,"money is not important, but happiness is always important." Happiness and money must be closely connected each other(and some research prove it) and needless to say, there's no happiness in a one-dollar-in-a-day life.

However, at the same time, there's happiness in a one-million-dollar-in-a-day life, isn't there? That should be another question to think of. Personally I can't imagine what it is like to be such a life, but there may be another problem, say, on how to manage to choose what kind of assets or how to inherit their property to whom.

In my opinion, I am happy that I can eat, read and sleep in a house with a well-built roof. I don't hope too much that I will live in luxury (I would like to live in luxury, having nice dinner and drink and bedroom), but I actually hope I will live a simple and stable life. If I can't live such a life now, then I should take some action to better it and that time should make me think money important in my present life. (No inflation is considered now. If there's the fear of inflation, my above view will be quite different. Behind my view the value of money, the purchasing power of money is important, not money itself when considering what kind of life we would like to lead.)

I believe that saving money doesn't mean just cutting down on our expenditure(cutting down on our standard of living makes no sense!), but thinking carefully of what to buy.

Some commentators on TV or in today's newspapers suggest that we should save money for our uncertain future life, but our future is always uncertain and the most certain thing on the future is that the future is always uncertain. And that's why we should think carefully of what we need most in today's life.

Don't be afraid of our future life too much, yes of course, we need to think of it, but thinking too much is not so helpful when we face some difficulties in our career. We should think of what we can do now because it is clear that we can't do what we can't do now.

If we think that we need something for our current or future job, we should now be studying or preparing for it(there's no money but there's much time! Time is also as important as money in our life), and if we need higher paid job to keep our current life stable, we should be looking for it in the job advertisement on the Internet or in the newspapers.

Please don't be influenced by someone near us(otherwise, you will be hurt!), just listen to or sometimes pretend to listen to what other people mean. However, some advise should be listened to. We remember they don't always think of us or they don't always try to be helpful to us. They just talk about what they want to talk(they just break time!). We should keep in mind that finally"do it yourself". Don't take too much time to talk about ourselves to someone, take time for us to prepare for another chance in the future.

Money is important but it doesn't choose our life. Moreover other people don't choose our life at least here in Japan and in some developed and democratic countries where the law protects our freedom to choose our career. Our life chooses our money.  

Monday, September 06, 2010

'Frosh' means 'Fresh'

While reading my favorite blog, I was sure I found the wrong spelling in it.

'Frosh' should spell "Fresh".

But I looked up the online dictionary, it has that word: 'frosh' means 'a freshman in a college.' My dictionary doesn't have it. Why not a freshman is 'frosh'? These sound very different. I am not so serious though, just I am wondering why.

It's an American English word. I realize that there's really a lot in the world that I don't know.