How You Can Improve Your Life by Learning From the Samurai
The wisdom of the Japanese Samurai has been respected for ages. Their mindset and way of life are truly something special, and the warrior spirit they live by, called ‘bushido’, is something everybody can learn something valuable from. In Hagakure, several of these bushido principles are laid out, and within these principles are lots of valuable lessons to be learned. It talks about how you can deal with adversity, what your work ethic should be, how important courage is, how to respond to circumstances, and how crucial sticking to your word is. In this post these aspects of Bushido are laid out with quotes directly from Hagakure with an explanation of what their meaning and application in your life can be.
Adversity
2-42 “The more water there is, the higher the boat rises.”
This Japanese saying is an important metaphor that perfectly encapsulates the positive effects adversity can have. It is saying that the more adversity you experience (the more water), the better you will become because of it, and the more you can achieve (the higher the boat rises).
The only way you can become better is by doing things that are difficult and going through hardship. You need resistance in order to become a better version of yourself. In the gym, you train with weight (resistance), every time a little more, so you get to lift a little bit more every time. The same applies to adversity, where you ideally slowly increase the amount of hardship you have to suffer to become more resilient. The more adversity you can experience in your life, the better you will become as an individual. You do have to be careful with this, too much adversity at once can break you, just as a sudden tidal wave can drown you. But still, the point remains the same: to become better you need adversity, and the more water, the higher the boat will rise.
1-174 “Those who revel when times are good will wither in adversity.”
Another reason why experiencing adversity in your life is crucial is that it will prepare you for the more difficult times. Hard times will come your way sometime in your life, whether you like it or not. But if you’ve never experienced any adversity in your life before, your tolerance for adversity will be very low, and you will be less able to handle it. On the contrary, when you are used to adverse situations and have overcome them many times before, adversity will be much easier to handle, and your tolerance for adversity will be so high that you can handle the worst of times. When you’re able to handle these bad situations better, you’ll become better as a person as well. If it doesn’t occur naturally, you can deliberately expose yourself to adversity to increase your tolerance for it.
Work Ethic
1-188 “A samurai should be excessively obstinate. Anything done in moderation will fall short of your goals. If you feel that you are doing more than is needed, it will be just right.”
When you desire to achieve something and the goals you set for yourself are large, working in moderation will ensure failure. To excel in something that you find worthwhile, whether it is a passion or a career path, you need to become obsessed with it.
People also often feel like they are working hard when they actually aren’t. They convince themselves that they are doing everything they can when they are clearly not. To really achieve your highest goals, you should not think, ‘how hard do I need to work to succeed’, but ‘how hard should I work so that I couldn’t possibly fail’. Only when you do more than is needed will you do just enough.
2-62 “A samurai with spare time on his hands is obviously not working hard enough.”
There is always some type of productive work you can do with your time. Time is the only real thing that you have, so you should spend it in a way that is beneficial to your life and your goals. This includes times of relaxation and fun, but also of work and training. You should find a balance that works best for you, but if you desire to be a hard worker, spare time, and especially boredom, should not be something you have in your life.
2-34 “Serving when out of sight of others should be done with the same prudence as when in the public eye.”
Everyone performs better when they know they are being watched. These are the times when you need to perform, whether it’s a sports event, a presentation you need to give, or a person who is watching over your shoulder. But this is only a small percentage and the least important of all the work you’ll actually do. The work you do when no one is watching is of much more importance to your success. This can be the boring work, the training, writing emails, or reading books. But these actions performed consistently over time will form the foundation of your improvements as a person. You should not feel like you can just relax, take it easy, or skip on your work because no one is watching. The work you do when no one is watching is the most important of all the work you will ever do.
Bravery
1-161 “In matters of military prowess, train with all of your might to never be surpassed by others, and think to yourself: “My valor is beyond compare.””
Courage is an important aspect for any warrior, without it, a warrior is useless. Churchill even named courage as the first of all human qualities, because it is the one that can guarantee all of the others. When you are not courageous enough to speak your mind, your intelligence becomes useless. When you’re strong, but you are afraid to show it, your strength is nonexistent. You need courage for any quality to become useful; that’s why it is the most important quality you can have.
2-118 “Valorous exploits can only be achieved by becoming a madman.”
To be truly brave requires the ability to not think and just do. Fear is a result of inaction, and the only thing that can resolve this fear therefore, is immediate action. Being brave isn’t about not feeling fear. It is about feeling fear and then taking the action anyway because you believe it is worthwhile. Of course there will be risk, of course it will be scary, but what would be even worse was if you did nothing and just stayed where you were. Action solves all fears.
Attitude
1-79 “There is a lesson to be learned from a downpour of rain. If you get caught in a sudden cloudburst, you will get a drenching even though you try to keep dry by hurrying along and taking cover under the overhangs on roofs. If you are prepared to get wet from the start, the result is still the same but it is no hardship. This attitude can be applied to all things.”
Reality is malleable. How you perceive reality decides what that reality is to you. What this short story is trying to tell us is that the way we look at a situation decides our response and the way we feel about it. The situation is solid and unchangeable, but the way we respond to it is up to us, we can decide how we look at it. So if you walk in the rain and think about how bad the rain is, how annoyed you are by your drenched clothing, or contemplate what could’ve happened if it didn’t rain, you will feel bad. But if you know that there is a possibility of rain and you take it as it comes, you will not feel bad. The situation in this story didn’t change, only the way you perceived it. You decide how you respond to reality. If you can master this, reality will bend to your will.
Your Word
1-98 “A samurai’s word is harder than metal. Once I have decided something, not even the gods can change it.”
Sticking to your word is valued in every society on earth, and for good reason. If you don’t act on what you say, your words are meaningless, and therefore you can’t trust them to result in the action they announce. When people can’t trust you, they won’t want to be near you, or ask you to do anything for them. Being a person who sticks to their word is therefore crucial if you want to be a trustworthy person. When you say something, you do it, no matter what.
This also applies to keeping your word to yourself. Confidence comes from acting in a way that is congruent with your own beliefs about what you should be doing. If you believe that you should train every day, but you don’t, you’ll feel less confident in yourself. Confidence therefore comes from keeping your word to yourself, what you believe you should do, you actually do. If you keep your word to yourself at all times, confidence is a natural result.