The Success as a Human
The following is the excerpt from the introduction
chapter of the book, The Success as a Human, by Konosuke Matsushita (PHP Press;
translated from Japanese by myself). Mr.
Matsushita is the founder of Matsushita Electric. also
known as Panasonic, etc. Living in a
busy world, many of us may not have time to spare time to think through such a
broad and deep subject. But, if so, would we consider our life as successful when
the time comes to leave this world?
Translation is made somewhat reflecting my taste and
to suit for Western readers. Some sentences
are skipped mainly to eliminate the redundancy.
Subheadings are my addition. Hope
you get something meaningful!
- Good luck, Kio Suzaki
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We are educated from our
young age to establish a good respectful position in the society. Also, not understanding fully, we may think
we should succeed no matter what. We,
then, call those people as successful, who have high position in the society,
have fame or earned large amount of money.
Seeing them treated as respectful in various ways, we may think that
such situation represents success….
Certainly, such situation may
represent a form of success. …Yet, I
begun to see that such situation does not necessarily represent “the success.” Rather than judging by such narrow yardstick
based on social status, fame or money, I feel that the meaning of success has
much broader and deeper meaning.
This is because,
each of us is given a unique talent.
Even if we have so many billions of people on earth, I see each is born
and raised differently. Whether
personality or talent, everyone is different and unique.
For each to have a different
potentiality mean that each individual is to live differently and work
differently reflecting his or her situation. Mr. A may be suited to be a politician,
whereas Ms. B may be suited as a businessperson or a scientist, etc. So, each can have a different mission on
earth corresponding to one’s talent.
I think success means for
each to utilize the (God-given) talent to the fullest. Such is the right way of living. It will make each person happy, and at the
same time, make others happy as a result of what one can contribute. Then, we can call such success as “The
success as a human” - the true meaning of success.
The nature of success will
differ for each person. Some may be
successful by becoming a politician.
Others may be happy to be a tailor to make customers happy. In this way, instead of using the measure of
social status, fame or accumulation of money, the measure of success become
whether we can live to achieve the mission using the (God-given) talent.
Further, by being able to
utilize the (God-given) talent, are we not be able to appreciate the taste of
true happiness and the meaning of life?
If instead, we think that attaining the social status or fame or
accumulating assets is the only measure of success, we may end up with
straining ourselves too much beyond the means, abusing the talent, or being
oblivious to our unique characteristics.
Also, if certain goal cannot be achieved, we may be very much
disappointed or feel inferior, thereby losing the joy of living our life.
Obviously, no matter how much
we make effort, it is impossible for every person to become the President or
Prime Minister of the nation, or champion of world tennis match. Yet, every person can do finding happiness by
utilizing the unique talent. Thus, by
each person expressing the potential according to his or her unique talent, we
may find our society like thousands of different flowers blooming and
expressing their best at the same time.
Those who are working in the
job where their talent is fully utilized will find full of happiness and
liveliness, and be able to live their life by finding the meaning in what they
do. In that sense, it is important to
spend life in whatever they do best….
This is to say that even
though one person may have succeeded in doing certain thing, if we imitate, we
may not succeed. Rather, we may more
likely fail. Since each of us is unique,
each has his or her way of living. Of
course, there may be a point where the same idea may be shared. But, if we were to be precise, it is natural
that each person’s case should be different.
So, forgetting this and developing a fix notion
from one (or few) reference point(s) can be quite dangerous.
After all, we need to know
who we are. And, based on that, we may
take suggestions and internalize it to meet our own specific situation. Otherwise, we may fail. Whether books, people, or any other
teachings, we should not blindly take someone else’s idea. We should take these as precious references
and make the best use of them (to suit to our specific situation). Always, we need to think on our own and act
accordingly, this, I think, is critically important.
Now, we have discussed so far
that the true success is in utilizing our own (God-given) talent, and that our
happiness is to be found in doing so.
The next question is “How can we find this (God-given) talent?” If we cannot identify it, there is no way of
utilizing it. So, it is important to
make effort in knowing our own talent, characteristics and uniqueness (hidden)
in each of us.
What is interesting, however,
is that finding our talent or uniqueness is not easy… This may sound unreasonable. Yet, here exists the interesting, or
refreshingly amazing point of living our life.
If we can find this so easily, is it not so interesting, don’t you
think? In spite of the difficulty to
discover this, we still make effort to search for it. In such a process, I think there is
indescribable nature of life that we can experience and appreciate.
Understanding the difficulty,
let us address how we may approach this.
Above all, we need to have sincere desire to discover the (God-given)
talent. ((Matsushita often talked about
similarity of our talent like a raw diamond stone. We need to discover this and
polish it to appreciate and make the most of it.)) This sincere wish has to be with us all the
time. If we are approaching this way,
there may be a time to be able to listen to the voice from within (as if from
the heart). Or, we may discover the
talent in us based on some inspiring event.
Perhaps, some one may give us an idea as well. If we are ready, then we can “intuitively”
grasp it.
On the other hand, if our
wish is weak (or we are self-centered), then, any “good” advice may be of no
use. It is therefore critical that we
have a earnest wish to want to discover our
talent. For this, we need to have the “Sunao”* mind (Jp. Roughly
translated as meek, unconditioned mind) at all times. If we do not have this Sunao
mind, we may become over-confident of our ability, or to make wrong judgment to
other person’s advice, and move in the direction that is quite unwise. So, I think it important to have 1) strong
earnest desire, and 2) Sunao mind. (almost like faith)
Then, as we have these
wishes, we may also teach kids from their young age the importance of this way
(of living life), and create the environment that helps identify the talent on
their own.** At home, at school, and further
at a society as a whole, we need to move in this direction. Even society has to exhibit interest in
discovering the talent as well as for it to create the environment that fosters
such discovery. In such a way, by each
individual to discover the talent on his own and to make
effort to realize his potentiality, all individuals can succeed and find the
way for happiness. Also, when each can
perform his role completely, and not to over-extend/over-burden himself nor
indulge in useless competition, society as a whole become an organic entity to
bring out its vitality to prosper from one day to the next.
This viewpoint of our success
may have been discussed many times in the past.
There may be nothing new. Still,
regardless of whether or not it was discussed in the past, for us to realize success
(i.e., our better life and better cooperative living with each other), I believe that we need to have such a notion of success. Finally, I sincerely wish that we make
efforts in succeeding as a human, and hence, extend and realize our talent in a
“sunao” (meek, straight forward, unbiased) manner.
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((* Sunao
mind: This is a critical subject. Sunao or meek,
unconditioned mind is an open mind that sees what it is as it is without bias
as if to bring out the wisdom. It is
experiencing the experience directly without artificial interpretation of it. Meditative mind, mindfulness, etc. correspond
to this. This may be also described as a
quiet center in us to realize what is going on without delusion. If we are sunao, we
are aware of our mind’s movement and ready (from the Samadhi/sunao state) to bring out the insight/wisdom. The whole discussion and files on Zen, etc.
at my home page correspond to this very point.))
((** Creating the environment that helps identify
the talents and best utilize them: I
believe that the idea of mini-company and glass wall management, as explained
in Results from the Heart and The New Shop Floor Management are the ideas
corresponding to these points applied in our work environment. Application in our life situation was also addressed in the book, Results from the Heart. Also, Dogen points out the notion of Zenkigen:
full activation of talent/Buddha nature.
Kegon philosophy is tied to this as pointed
out elsewhere, e.g., Daisetz Suzuki, “Love and Power”))
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Note: The book, “The Success as a Human,” (PHP
Institute) covers more specific contents in such areas as life - worthwhile
living, new views on human, collecting wisdom, each one’s responsibility,
day-to-day advancement, enriched mind, Sunao mind,
etc. As I searched amazon.com to see if
this book is translated into English, to my surprise, I found virtually no
books of Matsushita are available in English, except the book by John Kotter about Matsushita’s leadership, which has a three
star customer rating out of maximum of five.
Compared to this, some of his books are sold millions of copies in Japan,
e.g., Opening up the Way (Michi o hiraku)
(over 35million). This, I think is quite
unfortunate. It is as if Matsushita’s
views of success are not readily shared or received by many
in the U.S. Having read his 30 or
so books available in Japanese, I was very much intrigued from his
insight. Within what appear as common
sense, I feel his wisdom backed up by extensive experiences and insight he
gained during his life. While my attempt
here may be limited, I am hopeful that we benefit from his wisdom.
Wishing the good luck, good
day, good life! - Kio Suzaki (6/7/03)
* Back to my home page: www.suzaki.has.it