Ganbaru: Doing More Than One's Best With Perseverance - Japanese
On the balance in life, and perseverance as a survival tool
What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.
Viktor Frankl
We are back in Japan again. We traveled a bit in Europe, and also visited Asia, but Japan is like an inevitable end to which you return after everything. With so many interesting concepts, I guess we can't do anything different.
This week's word of the week was suggested by one of my readers,
who are the writers of Daffodil & Peony’s Newsletter, an insightful newsletter about books. I enjoy reading their posts every week.Today’s word was on my list, just waiting for its time, but with this valuable and kind suggestion, it got its right to see the light of day.
Our topic is perseverance and determination, and our word is ganbaru.
Ganbaru in Japanese means not only to do your best in doing something but also to go beyond the best by persevering to the end. If you have read previous posts, you will remember another similar word. Sisu (Finnish)
Perseverance and determination are inherent in many cultures. To keep going without giving up, to keep walking even if the roads are rough, to climb to the top without succumbing to fear.
However, when it comes to perseverance and hard work, we need to pause and think a little. In today's modern culture, "being hardworking" seems to be a personality trait and life principle that is encouraged, recommended, and even forced upon us. Side hustles, overdose proactivity, 4 AM daily routines are usually the most read articles, and this is not a coincidence.
Because in the modern times, the value of human beings is almost exclusively measured by the amount of time they work and the things they produce, and even worse, by the money they earn, it is vital for people to be able to balance life and work in order to have a meaningful life. Otherwise, at the end of the road, it is possible to surrender to regret at a point of no return. This is why there are not only articles praising 'ganbaru', but also a considerable number of articles on how it may not always be good and that a balance needs to be set.
After all, satisfaction in life is all about balance. We live oscillating between two ends of a string. Love vs hate, finding strange vs getting used to it, good vs bad. Finding balance without falling off the rope brings happiness.
Without doubt, perseverance is one of the most essential human traits for survival. It’s best to adopt it for times of struggle on the road. Other times one may be more relaxed.
Notes & Reads:
When it comes to perseverance, a much-written-about topic, I prefer to be on the safe side and suggest a classic at risk of remaining ordinary. I'm quite sure we'll return to this subject later, and dig deeper then.
Educated by Tara Westover is a novel and memoir about her life, which began in an isolated area in Idaho. She, as the youngest of five elder brothers and an alder sister, didn’t see any doctor, school, or lecture till her teens. After all, she takes the ACT and gets admission to Brigham Young University on a scholarship. She studies for a master's degree at the University of Cambridge in Trinity College, and after attending as a visiting fellow at Harvard, she gets her doctorate from Cambridge at the end.
If we talk about perseverance, this story, and memoir, is a perfect read.
This week’s post is published a bit late, on Sunday instead of Friday, due to some technical problems. But I’m happy to have managed to write it despite all the bad luck.
Although Japanese words attract my mind powerfully, next week I will set out to visit other parts of the world.
Have a great week and weekend.
— Gulsun
If you enjoyed the post, you can support WoW by sharing it or subscribing to receive weekly newsletters. You can also simply click the heart which shows your enjoyment, and that would mean a lot to me.
Thank you for your kind words and for featuring us in your newsletter.
I can resonate with your touch of balance in the concept of perseverance. In other words, how relevant is one's perseverance in the bigger picture of one's definition of happiness and contentment? Since the definition of happiness varies among people, the degree of perseverance might change too. An aspect that I hadn't linked with this word until I read your post. Always learning a different perspective from you.
Have a joyful week! Cheers:)