The irony of excess freedom according to Japanese living
Why structure is important to do what you want, when you want to
You need to live more kisoku tadashii!
When I was younger, my grandmother would often admonish me with this phrase whenever I visited her in Japan during the summers.
As I woke up at 11am, with my bed, hair, and room a mess, with no plans for the day and nothing proper to eat in the fridge, I thought that summer breaks were supposed to be like this. What is wrong with an unstructured day? It was freeing and fun, to wake up without an alarm and without any responsibilities for the day.
But it was around a few hours later, when I was still in my pajamas and I realized that I hadn’t done anything besides staring at my Nintendo DS playing video games, that the value of my grandmother’s words would settle in. Maybe having a bit of structure in my day wouldn’t be too bad.
The direct translation for kisoku tadashii is “correct rule”, but it’s a phrase that is often used to describe how people should live their everyday lives — in a structured or routine way.
Kisoku (規則): rule
Tadashii (正しい): correct
