Get the Japanese Superfood List
The book has arrived from Amazon. This time, it isn’t the sample book.
It feels good to put it in my bookshelf.
If you have any Japanese friends, here is the link to the book page.
Did you watch the World Baseball Classic final?
Although Japan had won WBC twice before, this victory was different from theirs.
The U.S. team had top major league players this time, and it truly was a moment to prove that the Japanese baseball level was upgraded.
For my generation, major league baseball had always been beyond our reach, and it had been a dream for Japanese baseball players to nip at their heels.
In the last 20 years or so, players like Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui have gone to the major league and created a new reality for the Japanese. The level of Japanese baseball has definitely gone up, thanks to all those years of playing baseball as a national sport.
Then, now we have a superstar Shohei Ohtani changing the image of Yakyu, Japanese baseball.
Yet, it has still been one man’s show. This WBC, however, many other players such as Kensuke Kondo, Masataka Yoshida, Roki Sasaki, and Munetaka Murakami have contributed to Japan’s victory.
I am very impressed with young Japanese players.
Also, I got to know more about Shohei Ohtani at WBC. I had seen some of his plays in the major league on YouTube, but not a full game. I am not that interested in baseball now, although I played baseball as a kid. This time I watched all games that Japan played, all seven games. On TV, they talked about the players outside the games, too. They talked a lot about Otani, how he has been nice and friendly to his teammates, and some of the comments he made about other teams. He respected the Czech team very much, for example, and even wore their cap when he arrived in Florida. He also cares about other Asian players. When he was asked in an interview that if he thinks this victory will change the future of Japanese baseball players, he said, not only for the Japanese players, but also for players in Korea, Taiwan, and China. He has a universal mindset.
I was impressed by his incredible mentality, too. He had been confident throughout the tournament. He had never seemed to be nervous.
When he pitched, was in the batter’s box or got on base. he wasn’t just confident, he was relaxed and enjoying the game. It isn’t like he has a full of passion to win, you know, a kind of fighting spirit. He is calm and has room in his mind. He is confident to the degree that he knows he is going to win. It is a fact, not a wish or desire. And this mental room allows him to be nice to others.
It is similar to Ikigai Mindset I wrote about in The Ikigai Diet and Ikigai Bio-Hacking. When you practice Shinon Kansha or Ima Iwai and always feel happy about yourself, you naturally build this kind of confidence. Because you are already great here and now, you don’t need to chase the future; the future will come toward you.