In Japan, there is a practice of interviewing famous, successful people and asking them what the most important principle that they live by is. Answers are usually such things as “persevering through hardship”, “putting other people before me”, and so on. I thought a little bit about this for myself, and came up with “習い続く”, or keep on learning.

What I mean by this is that I don’t ever want to adopt a mindset that I’ve reached some sort of final stage in my growth and therefore don’t have to learn more or accept new ideas. I have met several people like this. One of them was an economics professor I had in my freshman year of college. He had gotten the meanings of the prefixes “post-” and “ante-“confused, and I tried to correct him after class, but because he was the big man with the doctorate he refused to even consider that he could be wrong.

More than just staying open-minded, I want to continue to grow. For example, when I first learned Spanish, I found it surprisingly enjoyable. So, I started learning other languages. When I first picked up the guitar, I loved that too, so I’ve gone on to other musical instruments as well. I still don’t think I’ve mastered anything, not even my native English, so I will also continue to grow within everything I do.