Dear Reader,

What is Japanese genki (元気)? Well, genki refers to good health, but it looks beyond human physiology and encompasses our energy, our vitality for life, and the spirit we project on others.

If it was an image, it would be a dog wagging its tail when their owner comes home, or perhaps how a tulip opens up at sunrise. If it was a sound, it’s the way a crowd cheers at a concert, or how a baby laughs with its mother. If it was a touch, it would be a high five from our teacher, or a tight hug from a good friend.

It is not always loud, it is not always bold, but it always sparks something within us.

Genki comes from many different parts of our lives, but it would be incorrect to think that it is something that requires an external influence. We don’t need others to affirm it, we don’t need things to manifest it. That is the special thing about genki: Fundamentally, it is internal.

So how do we become more genki?

I won’t tell you to just be more positive, for genki is an accumulation of our physical, mental, and social well-being. While we don’t need to have flat abs or be the most social person to exist, we do need to be paying attention to these parts of our well-being, and align it to our values and personal identity.

Here are 3 easy things you can do to build your genki spirit:

1. Have less— it creates room for more

When covid first hit, I suddenly found myself having less than a week to move out of my apartment in the United States to fly back to Japan to be with my family. With no time or opportunity to store or pack and ship my belongings home, I ended up having to throw and give away a lot of my stuff. Amazon Prime had also run out of suitcases by this point, and so I only had one big suitcase and duffle bag to carry all of my belongings.

I was relentless in what I had decided to leave behind. I only kept the things that were important to me, which turned out to be things that are reliable and useful, have sentimental value, or brought a lot of joy into my everyday life. I found that about 80% of what I found truly valuable came from only 20% of my things, most of it things I’ve had for a while. Finally having less, I could focus my energy better on what mattered.

Some other things to have less of: Toxic content on your social media feed, too much news, conditional friends, and old pantry food.

2. Talk to others— about anything

When I was in high school, I would speak to the neighbor outside my apartment every morning. I would be heading to the bus stop, she would be sweeping her front porch, and every time we crossed each other we would say good morning, how are you, what are you up to today.

We’d talk about her opinion on the most recent election, my new interest in quilting t-shirts, how she spent months thinking those UberEats delivery boxes were a new backpack trend, or how I read somewhere that the healthiest way to cook eggs was to boil them rather than pan-fry.

We rarely ever talked about useful or practical things, and it was always very short, but it hardly mattered — high school often felt like a stressful cubicle job, but on those mornings I would always leave those conversations reminded that I should treat life more like a playground.

3. Constantly do new things— even small things

There is a saying in Japanese, that goes “A dog that walks will eventually find a stick.”

One way it’s interpreted is that if we are always moving around and testing our curiosities, we will eventually meet trouble. Another way is that we will find great luck and joy.

But the consensus is the same: whether we meet trouble or we find great treasures, staying inside all day is not worth exchanging for being safe, for life is best lived when we are always doing something new. A dog would much rather roam around outside and get stung by a bee than to be chained up inside a house.

It’s why our most important and fun memories tend to be those that involve something new, different, or challenging. It’s why successful people are constantly preaching experimenting, failure, and doing it all over again. Comfort is comfortable, but unfortunately, it can’t do much to feed our spirit.

It doesn’t need to be big or dangerous, but doing something new always has the possibility to lead to somewhere interesting.

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Genki comes from someplace internal, a subtle yet powerful joy for life that neither requires affirmation nor approval from others. Find it, feed it, and let it grow, because I think you deserve it.

What nurtures your sense of genki?

Warmly,

Kaki

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