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In April, the suit was new.
On the commuter train, I stood a little straighter.
I was still a little proud of being a working adult.
Two months have passed since then.
June, honestly
The self I pictured and the self I am now don’t quite line up.
In meetings, there are times I can’t keep up.
I mean to ask a senior colleague, and miss the moment.
I make a mistake, and even at night it won’t leave my head.
I come home tired, without the energy to cook.
I think, “So this is what working life is like,” but I can’t be sure that it really is.
The me of that April imagined something a little different.
👉 Just not visible yet. — Pool, and what builds up.
The right answers disappeared
As a student, there were right answers.
Tests had answers, and if you worked hard, it turned into points.
Club activities had rules, too.
Somewhere, there was a standard for judging you.
But now, I don’t know what the right answer is.
Some days, honestly, I don’t really know what to work hard at, or how.
Teamwork, initiative, attitude — I feel judged by something I can’t see, and it’s a little uncomfortable.
Once I started getting paid, the same mistake seemed to mean something slightly different.
Moments when someone says “Well done” are fewer than I expected.
👉 The right answer is always being rewritten. — On pool as a pursuit.
Deciding for yourself
Having no right answer meant I had no choice but to decide for myself.
What to put first.
Whom to ask.
What to do, here, in this moment —
No one tells you.
But if you wait for someone to decide for you, nothing moves.
Sometimes I feel pathetic for not knowing.
Some days I wonder how my seniors never seem to hesitate.
But they didn’t know from the start either.
Maybe they made mistakes, caused trouble for others, kept going anyway, and only little by little came to have a sense of “deciding for themselves.”
What I noticed at the table
In pool, no one gives you instructions.
How to read this layout.
Where to send the cue ball next.
Take the risk, or play it safe.
All of it, you decide.
When it goes wrong, there is no excuse.
When it went well, it was the result of my own choice.
As a student, I was looking for the right answer.
No right answer is laid out on the table.
There was only the ball in front of me.
Somehow, that repetition seemed to resemble who I am now.
👉 Thinking back from the 9-ball can change your life.
Even in June, it’s not too late
There are things I didn’t know in April.
But that isn’t a bad thing.
That things don’t go the way you hope.
That you come to see your own inexperience.
That someone will help you.
All of these, I didn’t know in April.
Amid days you’re not yet used to, keeping a little time that is yours alone.
Having nights when you empty your head and focus on a single ball.
Nights like that turn out to matter more than you’d think.
👉 See the Yokohama Billiard Hall Guide
👉 Billiards resources from Japan and around the world, organized by purpose: Billiards in Depth (latest updated hourly)
