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| "Women's Life and Health"
is the interview series that features active
professional women about their health, lifestyle and career. |
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| Interview
vol.3 |
Yoko Kishimoto, Essayist -Part1 |
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| Yoko Kishimoto |
| Essayist. After graduating from The University of Tokyo, she worked for an insurance company and from 1986 studied at the Beijing Foreign Studies University. Her writings include Onna no Sokojikara Sutetamonjanai (Kodansha Bunko, Kodansha Ltd.); Shiju de Gan ni Nattekara (Kodansha); Mansion Katte Heyazukuri and Gan kara Hajimaru (Bunshun Bunko, Bungeishunju Ltd.); Shiawase made Mo Ippo, Raku de Genki na Hito ni Naru and Are mo Kore mo de 12 Kagetsu (Chuko Bunko, Chuokoron-Shinsha, Inc.); Kishimoto Yoko no Kurashi to Gohan (Shobunsha Publications, Inc.); 40 Dai kara Hatsuratsu to Ikiru tameni (to be published by Kadokawa Gakugei Shuppan Publishing Co., Ltd. in late November). One of the books that interested her recently is Shukyo to Kagaku no Setten (by Hayao Kawai, Iwanami Shoten, Publishers). For details of her activities, including her books, visit the website “Kishimoto Yoko Fan Site” run by admirers of hers at http://www.kishimoto-fan.com/(Japanese only). |
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| As you reached your twenties, thirties, and recently forties, you grew older quite nicely. What changes did you experience in each stage of life? |
| There was a big difference in my twenties and thirties. When I was in my twenties, I always wondered whether I was content with how things were. The feeling that I should be “somewhere else but here” haunted me-as well as “whether I’m content continuing to work for this company” and “I haven’t married yet though people around me are getting married.” I became quite irritated about the fact that I hadn’t been able to find an answer in both my career and private life. I thought that turning 30 wasn’t really on my mind, but as my birthday drew near, the feeling of whether I was content to enter my thirties without finding answers grew more intense. In light of this, the life paths of acquaintances around me were on my mind, and I was inadvertently comparing my lifestyle with those of others. While I would hear that a particular acquaintance was working for a particular company and was doing well, I thought twice about what I was doing. |
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| Does that mean that you had such anxieties throughout your twenties? |
| Yes. My anxieties grew more and more intense until I entered my thirties. I tried but failed many endeavors. Even in my mid-twenties, I quit the company for which I was working in order to study abroad without any clear purpose. Upon my return to Japan, I started working again on a part-time basis. |
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| Was there any reason you decided to study abroad? |
| The only purpose was to give shape to the feeling that I should be “somewhere else but here.” I didn’t have a clear goal or prospect to develop my career when I decided to study abroad. I left Japan simply because I felt that I shouldn’t have been where I was at that time. |
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| What changes did you experience when you moved from your thirties to forties? |
| Since there was a big difference in my twenties and thirties, I didn’t experience major changes between my thirties and forties. When I entered my thirties, I came to really value the “here and now.” Up until then, I always felt like “today is a temporary period of time that passes before I go somewhere else.” But I realized that 24 hours in one day weren’t different from those in another and that any 24 hours had the same value. For example, if I lived until 80, any 24 hours were 1/365th of 1/80th of my life. I came to think that I was wasting my time because I was always worried about “where” and “when” and did not value the present time. At the same time, I was no longer concerned with how successful other people around me were. |
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| Is that so? |
| For example, one acquaintance who got married and thought she found answers in her private life got divorced in her thirties. Another who was doing a great job at work suddenly gave up a position everybody would’ve loved to have and started to engage in completely different activities. I realized that it was unfeasible to think that a single choice in one’s twenties would determine the future course of one’s life! Everybody continues to try and fail throughout life regardless of age. In my thirties, the type of anxiety I had in my twenties disappeared entirely, allowing me to take a relaxed, natural attitude toward, and come to terms with, who I really was. |
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| In your essays, you write that your credo is not to compare yourself with others. I thought that you have long made up your mind not to compare yourself with others. Rather it seems that you naturally came to assume such an attitude, doesn’t it? |
| Originally, I was inclined not to worry about others so much. In my twenties, however, I was obliged to look at various lifestyles because people who had lived in the same way until I was in university started to follow different paths. But when I entered my thirties, I felt that I regained my old self. |
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| I see. If you can think objectively by understanding your own feelings and people around you, you could take a different view, couldn’t you? |
| Yes, you could. But since worrying about many things and feeling anxious is characteristic of one’s twenties, I feel that one doesn’t need to think that that should not happen. Although one wavers in one’s decisions in many ways, I am sure that certain decisions such as “I don’t want to do this” or “I want to do this after all” will remain. For example, no matter how much one wants to get married, one would not do so immediately after being introduced to a potential suitor (laughs). I feel that that type of thing will happen naturally. |
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| Marriage is a very typical example of a decision in one’s twenties and thirties, isn’t it? |
| Yes. Since I hadn’t been fully convinced that “what I’m doing now would work for me” as a career, I felt like at least getting married would work out. But when I wondered whether there were any good men to marry, one older acquaintance told me that there were good men and I could be introduced to them, but men at that age had made up their mind to marry any woman as long as she didn’t feel any dislike toward the man. My acquaintance then asked me whether I was determined to marry that type of man. Those words went straight to my heart (laughs). I had expressed all my anxiety and impatience through wondering whether there were any good men and whether I should marry one. Actually, that didn’t accurately represent my true feelings, but I had ended up putting various excuses and confusion into the question, “Is there a good guy out there?” This is what I realized in my thirties. |
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| That is what you think when you look back now, isn’t it? |
| Yes. And as I expected, my thirtieth birthday passed without finding an answer, but it’s not like I had a sign on me that said, “I am 30 years old.” I noticed that all the people around 35 or 36, who attracted my attention as those in the same generation as I was, also became as irritated and worried as I had become in my twenties. That type of thinking led me to believe that to live is to continue wondering I am content with how things are. |
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