During the year-end countdown broadcast from Times Square, reporters interviewed people who had gathered to welcome the New Year.
Listening to their answers, I was struck by how universal human wishes truly are—no matter where we live.
During the year-end broadcast of the Times Square countdown, reporters were interviewing people who had gathered there.
Just as in Japan, when interviewers asked, “What kind of year do you hope it will be?”, people spoke of modest yet essential wishes—health, peace, success in their studies.
Human wishes are the same, East or West.
My own wishes are not very different from theirs: to stay healthy, to see a peaceful world, and to have my work go well—something that ultimately leads to the well-being of my patients.
There are, of course, more specific hopes.
But at this stage of life, I already know what needs to be done to achieve most of them.
As long as I continue making the effort to act accordingly, they are within reach.
In the end, it all comes back to one thing: maintaining both physical and mental health.
This year, I turn 63.
Some time has passed since I reached the age traditionally described as the time when one truly learns to listen. Only now do I feel that I am beginning, little by little, to understand what others are really trying to say.
Immersed in the noise and chaos of New York, this realization becomes even clearer.
Being swept up in a world where an extraordinary diversity of people move freely and independently, I cannot help but feel that human entropy is truly limitless, never coming to a stop.
If that is the case, then trying to place restraints on human behavior is, from the outset, an impossible task.
Seen from this perspective, I am reminded of just how restrained and self-controlled the Japanese way of life truly is.
I am grateful to have been raised as a Japanese person, and as one, I hope to continue growing—still and always, until the very end of my life.
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