The following is a translation of a speech I gave in Japanese to around one thousand high-school students. After two years of teaching at the school, this was my resignation:
Hello everyone. Today I will speak briefly. A few years ago, when the World Health Organization declared the pandemic, I was in Indonesia. In that country there is a very interesting traditional story.
Once upon a time, a frog lived in a coconut shell. For the frog, everything in the shell is familiar and safe. If the frog goes outside, what will happen? We don’t know the concrete details, but it’s dangerous, and there’s a high possibility of injury.
However, at the same time, there is the unexpected. There are many chances, opportunities to grow.
As high school students, you to some extent know yourselves. However, even now, there is probably much more about yourselves that you do not know. Therefore, I want you to maintain a spirit of trial and error. How will your goals, dreams, and ways of thinking evolve? No one knows. In the future, what will you find? Who will you meet? Such things are unknown.
When I was young, I worked for nearly five years as a truck driver. In the evenings, I wrote music, played in a band, and performed at numerous concerts. After that, I traveled alone, carrying one bag, around the world. Then, somehow at the age of 26, I become a university student.
I have also been lost in life. However, in that darkness and deep sadness, I learned many things. To what degree can we control life? That is a very difficult question.
And yet, within you, there are countless possibilities. To really understand that, the only way is trial and error.
Therefore, from now on, as a fellow frog, when you want to learn something new, when you want to try something new, when you are lost in life, when you are determined to leap out of the coconut shell, I’m cheering for you.