One thing I notice in Japan was smallness. No, I am not insulting their people. No, I am not insulting their men, either. Actually, many girls there are very cute… uh, yeah, getting off track.

I should say — large space does not matter.

Take a look at this picture.

It is a picture of my hotel room in Kyoto. There is barely space between the bed and table for my butt. It reminds me much about the living space from my past years in Hong Kong.

But, I am not complaining.

The common sense we have is — “Oh, we got so many things, we need more space”

In a way, our desire for space is directly related to our desire for things. Conversely, when we get more space in the house, we often want to fill that space with more things. Oh, what a dilemma.

Perhaps, we can consider the following chain of thought — “Oh, we got so many things, perhaps we need to make space by getting rid of things, that we don’t need, or use.”

Personally, I loooooove having space, and also cleanliness. They are very soothing.

Let’s face it, most of our stuffs end up sitting around collecting dusts. Instead, why don’t we carefully consider what we reeeeeeeeeally need, and if we are getting something, make sure it is something we will use frequently?

Oh, I am such a genius. Just kidding.

Another thing that is small is the portion of a meal. Each dish and even hamburgers from McDonald’s are smaller, which sucks for me because I am constantly hungry from my intense gym’ing. But for most Americans, who sit most days in office and sit some more in front of TV at home, can be a great idea.

That leads me to my final thoughts.

Perhaps we can use more limits. Yes, you heard me, limits, instead of more freedom.

Perhaps too much freedom had lead us to lots of indulgence, and indulgence is a result of not being clear about what is truly important. More limits in our environments force us to value what we have and cherish the resources that are available.

In other words, physical limits can be a great catalyst for internal growth.

Using the living space as an example, if you have so few square feets, there are only so many things you can have. And what you have will be what you need or truly find important.

Or if parking size is like this, you think twice before getting an SUV!

Ok, the car example is not very good. The living situation is too different. But about driving in Japan, most people from America probably can’t drive in Japan, uh, due to poor driving skills. I personally DON’T want to drive there.

Anyways, I want to say this…

Evolving the idea on limit. Next time when we are frustrated and want to complain, or feel like we are suffering immensely, or seem to have insatiable desires for other things, consider that, there will forever be somebody somewhere else who are a lot worse off than we are.

Maybe things could be better, but they can be a lot worse. Look at this picture featuring the tight quarters in Tokyo Metro’s human sardines.

I guess that is why seeing the world, experiencing different things, how people live differently, are so important. So we realize how things can be worse.

On this note, I attribute my non-narrow perspective and sometimes unique and bizarre mentality to my fortunate experience (well, also unfortunate because it sucked big times sometimes) of having moved and lived in drastically different places at an age (12) that I could make my own perception already. However, I give myself credits for choosing to look at both sides of things rather than seeing only the green on the other side.

Last thing, totally unrelated, is a picture near the famous cross section in Shibuya, Tokyo by Center Gai (センター街). Pretty, eh? (It was shot in Lost in Translation too — one of my favorite movies)

I had returned from my Japan trip this afternoon. In a few words, the trip was wonderful with the company of friends and their utmost kindness. Despite only a few days, it was very enjoyable, and that definitely includes the food.

On the other hand, it is also good to be home, comfy room, everything I need, and money stop flowing out. But I must say, Japan and California are both hot, the only difference being humidity, which makes it a little worse in Japan.

To deal with jet lag, I am forcing myself to be awake until now which is my local bed time. I am stubborn like this. One of the things I did to during my attempt to stay awake is customizing a theme for a new look for my blog. Geek! Yep! But it’s been awhile and since I am just sitting around, here it is.

Hope you all like it, let me know if there’s any change to make it better. I plan to also rewrite the “About” section and post a little bit more on Japan. Hopefully, I get around to it tomorrow.

So I am travelling in Japan for work and then leisure. To the right is a night shot of Tokyo from the hotel room.

A few observations I have on the Japanese frugality, or rather I should say, effective use of resources, that’s worth mentioning…

• Automatic door — The sensor is a lot less sensitive, meaning, it will only work when someone get much closer than the ones in the U.S. That means a risk running into doors if unprepared.
• Air conditioning — A/C is turned on at warmer temperature than in the states and also if turned on, is moderate and not full-blown such that it turns the room into a freezer. (me like!)
• Recycling — I think most people had heard of this one already. In Japan, recycling is done for more materials and more categorically and had been implemented way before the U.S.
• Toilet flushing — For most toilet, you can choose to flush with a “weak” or a “strong” flow of water. One for… each type of toilet business we can do, I presume, heh. Preservation of water, how clever!

I am still travelling and will stop for now. More report on Japan later. Here is a picture of me when first arrived at Tokyo, but grossly underdressed compare to the [real] white-collars in Tokyo, though overdressed compare to the [unreal?] white-collars in the States, ha!

Oh yeah, did I say this is my first time in Japan?

I’m sure that’s what all the banks think. “If only we can somehow make it 0% interest and still get people to deposite their money…”

This post is provoked as I am doing my monthly accounting and noticed this in my ING Direct Saving account.

So 1.5% is not low enough and they make it 1.4%, whaaaa….

They are really being unhelpful for those of us who are saving their money.

There are those people who think, “I will lose my money if I put them in stock market. I will not make any interest if I put them in saving. I will also lose money to inflation if I put them under my mattress. To hell with it, I’m going to spend it all.”

For sure that is not the right mentality to have, respective to saving and being frugal, but surely, we can all see why people feel that way, no?

PS. Hope everyone had a good July 4th weekend.

Productivity is a hot topic these days.

Whenever productivity is discussed, time management is the focus of it.

Let’s throw it out the window for now. It is more effective to think about it as attention management.

It’s more effective because of one basic premise — that at any given moment, our attention can only be of one thing.

When we talk about multi-tasking to increase productivity, we are doing multiple things within a given period of time, but we are not multi-tasking in each moment. It is not possible.

In geek terms, we are in fact only doing program switching or multi-threading, which is fake parallel processing, instead true parallel processing. To parallel process, you need multiple CPUs… well, each person is like one CPU, and one person cannot be more than one person.

Our attention cannot go two place.

You can try, but it is not possible.

Attention is the key in everything we do. To do something well, is to have your attention with it. Hence the phrase, “be one with what you do”.

When you are talking with someone, is your attention on that person? And that your attention is not on what you think about him. Not on what others had said about him. Not on what you are going to have for dinner. To communicate and truly connect, your attention is to be on that person.

When you are doing a task, is your attention on the task? And that your attention is not on how tough it is, how long it will take you, how frustrated you are, or worrying about not doing well. To do the task well and as efficient as possible, your attention is to be on that task.

Be one with what you do.

Pay attention in the moment.

When we don’t pay attention to what we do, or rather pay attention to everything else, physical or mental, but what we do, we do not do well and we make a mess of things.

Consequently, instead of how to allocate time, it makes more sense for us to pay attention to allocate where our attention goes. We can also have a good idea of our priorities, which when said is what we truly care, by seeing where our attention goes.

On a personal note, whenever I became aware that I am paying attention to my worries, frustrations, and other thoughts and emotions with the task on hand, I realize I am off track. Then I acknowledge, accept, and take note of those thoughts and emotions, and move my attention back on to my task on hand — things that are of priorities to me.

I end today with a story that goes something like this…

A serious student visited a Zen master and said, “Master, I know you are busy, so please write on this scroll some maxims of the highest wisdom for me to study.” And the master wrote, “Attention.”

The student was puzzled, and said, “I don’t understand.”

And the master wrote “Attention. Attention.”

“But all you’re doing is writing ‘attention’. Isn’t there anything else?”

And the master wrote it three times running: “Attention. Attention. Attention.”

Exasperated, the student demanded, “What do you mean by ‘attention’, anyway?!”

“Attention means attention,” the master replied.

Where does your attention go?