No Hothouse Flowering

I'm sitting in a small restaurant in Hakuba, a ski village in the Japanese Alps, and a plate of horse sashimi has just been placed in front of me.

I chose to be here, in Japan, for two weeks of business and exploration that would take me from Tokyo to Nagoya to Hakuba to Odawara and back to Tokyo. The horse sashimi is what Hakuba offered. So we forced ourselves to embrace the moment. And we ate it.

That decision keeps coming back to me. Not because the raw horse meat was remarkable (it was, actually) or because the eel liver soup that followed was something I'd ever have ordered at home.

It keeps coming back because of how many times in my regular life I would have found ways to avoid uncomfortable situations.

I would have Googled and researched thoroughly before arrival. I would have made sure the conditions were right before I walked through the door. I would do this all in the name of preparation, but sitting in Japan you realize it's not preparation, it's control.

And the cost of that control is a life that gets a little smaller every time you exercise it, so gradually you never notice the walls closing in.

Hothouse Flowers

A hothouse is essentially a glass box. Every condition inside is manufactured: temperature, humidity, light. The plants that grow there look beautiful, but they're beautiful because nothing has ever challenged them. Move them outside the glass and they collapse.

People do this too. It's the leader who avoids hard feedback or the startup that never faces a skeptical customer. But it's even deeper than that. It's what I now observe in myself back home that is in contrast to my behavior in Japan.

In the US, I now observe how I'm making my world smaller. We all do it to some extent. We engineer our way out of something, a trip, a dinner, a new skill, or a side detour, and the reasons always sound perfectly rational:

• I don't want to be out that late.

• I don't know what to expect.

• I don't want to look like I don't know what I'm doing.

• I’m not sure what to wear or if I have the perfect equipment.

• I'm not sure the creature comforts or accommodations will match my standards.

• I could be doing something more productive.

• I'm past that stage of life.

Every one of these is a tiny negotiation with yourself that you win every time, because you're arguing for comfort, and comfort never loses when it's the only voice in the room.

Japan didn't leave room for any of that.

We navigated train systems across four cities and seemingly never left ourselves enough time, so there was always real pressure and consequences.

I skied four straight days until my legs stopped cooperating.

I did my first onsen, which is not a spa but a practice that asks you to show up totally exposed to everyone in the baths (totally naked, and in some cases mixed gender) and be totally present in the moment.

I sat through a full omakase sushi experience where the chef decides everything. No choices. No optimization. Just surrender.

And we made new friends along the way. People who showed us the ways of Japan, who gave us history and context we never could have found on our own. Letting people in, admitting you don't know, trusting someone else to lead, being a student when you're used to being the one with answers. That loosened the grip more than anything.

Some of the best moments were things I couldn't have engineered. Letting our instincts guide a walk through an unfamiliar neighborhood and stumbling upon the unique and profane. I bought a pair of Onitsuka Tigers. I ate things I can't identify and navigated places I couldn't read. Not everything has to be a crucible.

Somewhere around day six, I noticed the version of me moving through Japan was different from the one who landed. Not because Japan changed me in some dramatic way. But because I'd stopped curating my conditions and started letting the experience be whatever it was going to be. The discomfort faded, the grip loosened, and life got bigger.

So here are my questions for you.

How sophisticated has your avoidance become?

And how much of your life have you quietly engineered away without noticing?

Loosen the grip. Walk without a map. Eat what's in front of you.

You might be stronger than your preferences have allowed you to discover.