The cliché of the “self-discovery journey”

In Japan over the past decade, the “journey of self-discovery” has become something of a secular religion among young people. The ritual is almost always the same: quit your job, fly to Machu Picchu or some other world-renowned spiritual site, and return with a suitcase full of “life-changing” stories to post on social media.

To be honest, I’ve never liked the ambiguity of the phrase “finding oneself.” Are you looking for things you like? Things you want to do? With such a vague goal, you are bound to end up with vague results. These “ear-pleasing” terms allow people to feel like they’ve understood the essence of a thing when they haven’t even scratched the surface. In other words, using these words is easy; it allows your thinking to simply stop.

I know it sounds arrogant of me to criticize young people for taking the easy path—ignoring my own past mistakes. But perhaps this desire to preach is just one of the primary symptoms of getting older. Please, bear with the ramblings of an aging man and read on with a kind heart.

Experience is a teacher, not an identity

Why is this trend so popular? I believe it’s because we have drastically overestimated the value of “experience” for its own sake. People seem to think they can simply “buy” a personality through travel. But we should ask ourselves: is the experience itself really the big deal?

If the experience of travel truly contributed to one’s personal growth, one would think these travelers would at least develop enough intuition to notice the bored expressions their listeners are politely trying to hide during those endless “epic tales” of adventure.

What matters isn’t what you did, but what you learned from it. There’s an old saying that “experience is the best teacher for a fool.” Think about it: if you were diagnosed with cancer and needed surgery, would you demand a doctor who had experienced cancer themselves? Of course not. You would want the doctor who has spent 20 years in a windowless room studying how to save lives. One is an experience; the other is an identity built on mastery.

The frog in the well knows the depth of the blue

I’m not saying new experiences are useless. I’m saying that breadth is not the only way to find yourself. Depth is an equally valid—and perhaps more stable—alternative.

In Japan, there is a famous proverb: “The frog in the well knows nothing of the great ocean.” Most people use this to mock narrow-mindedness. But the full proverb continues: “…but it knows the blue of the sky.” This second half changes everything. It suggests that by staying in one place and looking deeply at one thing, you can perceive truths that someone constantly moving across the “great ocean” might miss.

Look at our craftsmen at CondeHouse. Many of them start their careers as woodworking specialists right after graduation. They don’t travel the world in search of their souls. Instead, they spend decades in the “well” of their workshop, masterfully working with wood. They aren’t lost; their identities are carved into the very furniture they create. They don’t need to go to Machu Picchu to find themselves—they find themselves every day in the grain of the oak and the edge of the chisel.

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While others wander the world looking for a “core,” true mastery is found by staying in one place and perfecting a single craft. Why not celebrate the “depth of the blue” with a design that reflects a lifetime of focus?

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