Life will not respond to you if you do not challenge it. If you hit it vacantly, it responds to you only with emptiness.

 

Saburo  Shiroyama

 

 

Sometimes "you cannot be satisfied with your life" and it goes on and on, or sometimes your life  ends all at once after a "long rehearsal." Either way, if you don't challenge, you won't realize your limit or you won't gnash your teeth with frustration with your limit. Overcoming your limit with mortification will surely  cause you to stand in a better viewing area than ever. Then, you'll find the slope you struggled to climb flat. From the author's "Life Has The Remaining Heat."

 

January 5,  2017

from “Oriori no Kotoba” by Kiyokazu Washida, The Asahi Shimbun