Ichiro Kishimi Quotes Page 2

“Let’s dance in earnest the moments of the here and now, and live in earnest. Do not look at the past, and do not look at the future. One lives each complete moment like a dance. There is no need to compete with anyone, and one has no use for destinations. As long as you are dancing, you will get somewhere.”

“Living in fear of one’s relationships falling apart is an unfree way to live, in which one is living for other people.”

“Loneliness is having other people and society and community around you, and having a deep sense of being excluded from them.”

“No experience is in itself a cause of our success or failure. We do not suffer from the shock of our experiences – the so-called trauma — but instead we make out of them whatever suits our purposes. We are not determined by our experiences, but the meaning we give them is self-determining.”

“No matter how much you want to be Y, you cannot be reborn as him. You are not Y. It’s okay for you to be you. However, I am not saying it’s fine to be ‘just as you are’.

If you are unable to really feel happy, then it’s clear that things aren’t right just as they are. You’ve got to put one foot in front of the other, and not stop.”

“No matter what has occurred in your life up to this point, it should have no bearing at all on how you live from now on. That you, living in the here and now, are the one who determines your own life.”

“None of us live in an objective world, but instead in a subjective world that we ourselves have given meaning to. The world you see is different from the one I see, and it’s impossible to share your world with anyone else.”

“On the map of the world used in France, the Americas are located on the left side, and Asia on the right. Europe and France are depicted at the centre of the map, of course. The map of the world used in China, on the other hand, shows the Americas on the right side, and Europe on the left. French people who see the Chinese map of the world will most likely experience a difficult-to-describe sense of incongruity, as if they have been driven unjustly to the fringes, or cut out of the world arbitrarily.
”

“Once one is released from the schema of competition, the need to triumph over someone disappears.”

“One cannot change what one is born with. But one can, under one’s own power, go about changing what use one makes of that equipment. So in that case, one simply has to focus on what one can change, rather than on what one cannot. This is what I call self-acceptance.”

“One needs to think not 'What will this person give me?' but, rather, 'What can I give to this person?' That is commitment to the community.”

“One should be ready to lend a hand when needed but not encroach on the person’s territory. It is important to maintain this kind of moderate distance, thinking things like "He should like me or I’ve done all this, so it’s strange that he doesn’t like me", is the reward-oriented way of thinking of having intervened in another person’s tasks.”

“People can change at any time, regardless of the environments they are in. You are only unable to change because you are making the decision not to.”

“People with neurotic lifestyles tend to sprinkle their speech with such words as 'everyone' and 'always' and 'everything'.

“Everyone hates me.” they will say, or “It’s always me who takes a loss.” or “Everything is wrong.”

If you think you might be in the habit of using such generalizing statements, you should be careful.”

“Relationships in which people restrict each other eventually fall apart.”

“Someone has to start. Other people might not be cooperative, but that is not connected to you. My advice is this: you should start. With no regard to whether others are cooperative or not.”

“Suppose you have placed “doubt” at the foundation of your interpersonal relations. That you live your life doubting other people—doubting your friends and even your family and those you love. What sort of relationship could possibly arise from that? The other person will detect the doubt in your eyes in an instant. He or she will have an instinctive understanding that “this person does not have confidence in me.” Do you think one would be able to build some kind of positive relationship from that point? It is precisely because we lay a foundation of unconditional confidence that it is possible for us to build a deep relationship.”

“That’s what it means to live in your subjective world. There is no escape from your own subjectivity. At present, the world seems complicated and mysterious to you, but if you change, the world will appear more simple. The issue is not about how the world is, but about how you are.”

“The courage to be happy also includes the courage to be disliked. When you have gained that courage, your interpersonal relationships will all at once change into things of lightness.”

“The first step to change is knowing.”

“The more one is praised by another person, the more one forms the belief that one has no ability. Please do your best to remember this.”

“The reason so many people don’t really feel happy while they’re building up their success in the eyes of society is that they are living in competition.”

“There is a simple way to tell whose task it is. Think, Who ultimately is going to receive the end result brought about by the choice that is made?”

“Those who go so far as to boast about things out loud actually have no confidence in themselves.”

“Those who make themselves look bigger on borrowed power are essentially living according to other people’s value systems—they are living other people’s lives.”

“Three things are needed: self-acceptance, confidence in others, and contribution to others.”

“To get rid of one’s problems, all one can do is live in the universe all alone.”

“Unable to communicate out of fear of hurting other people even when one has something to assert, one may end up abandoning what one really wants to do.”

“Unless one is unconcerned by other people’s judgments, has no fear of being disliked by other people, and pays the cost that one might never be recognized, one will never be able to follow through in one’s own way of living. That is to say, one will not be able to be free.”

“Value is something that’s based on a social context.”