Another week has past and today's Sunday is pleasantly slow and calm. After some little cleaning I could manage to lie down a bit with the little one. Now she is champing down her afternoon snacks and the only thing that really need to be done is to go and get some groceries for the coming days.
If I watch her next to me talking to herself I'm there again, thinking what would be the best for me and my girls. I have been living here in Japan for some years now, I pretty much got used to the daily challenges which await me behind any other corner. I do like my life here, and although I do experience many flaws too it still feels exiting and fresh.
But will it be the right place for my daughter growing up? Japan has many advantages, crime is super low and things are pretty safe and organized. Yet nothing is perfect,and the outlooks for the most eastern country aren't the brightest right now. The society is aging rapidly, and it feels like the are preparing for a backlash to some more conservative and self-centered times.
Japan is based on uniformity, the individual is to be considered to find and except their place within the group. Not an easy place for people who are trying to find their own way and who don't want to align and sacrifice themselves for the greater good of a nation.
Do I want my daughter to become an obeying robot? No need to answer this question, all I wish for is that she can find herself and become a free individual, testing out and challenging all the boundaries which she will discover on her way to the top.
Wouldn't it be great if our kids could tear down all the walls, the physical ones and the ones in our heads? If they could live a life without any prejudices, restraints and fear? Without boarders and boundaries, only responsible to themselves but fully aware that their own freedom should never interfere with the freedom of anybody else?
It's up to me to provide her the right environment to grow strong and to bloom as colorful and bright as imaginable.
So I'm on it!
I'm building a wonderland where nothing is impossible. In our schools, dreaming will be one of the first lessons and everybody, old and young, will be encouraged to participate as often as the want and need.
Where everyone will be motivated to reach out as high as possible, only the sky is the limit, but in our thoughts we are allowed to aim even much further beyond.
Are you going to join me?
