日本語 ｜ 繁體中文 ｜ English ｜ 한국어 ｜ Tiếng Việt
There are three half-used bottles of serum on the shelf above the sink.
Each one, I used every day for the first week.
From the second week, there were days I forgot.
By the third week, I had stopped reaching for them.
It isn’t that they didn’t work.
It isn’t that I came to dislike them, either.
It just, somehow, trailed off.
I bought a new one.
This time, I thought, I’ll keep it up.
But the same thing happened.
Am I just someone who can’t keep things up?
What sets the people who keep going apart
When I see someone with beautiful skin, I can’t help wondering.
Are they using something special?
Expensive serums, applied without a second thought?
But when you ask, it often turns out to be surprisingly simple.
“This one thing, I do every day.”
And that “one thing” has been going on for years.
Not doing anything special. Just never stopping the one thing.
That, probably, is where the difference lies.
Make it just one
Once, looking up how to stick with a beauty routine, I came across this.
Start only one new step at a time.
Set your budget by whether you could keep it up for six months or more.
Keep it somewhere you can reach without thinking.
I see, I thought.
I had started all three of those serums at once.
And one of them was a little too expensive to keep up.
I had tucked them away at the back of the shelf, and before I knew it I had forgotten they were there.
The people who keep going, and me, who didn’t.
Maybe the difference was never willpower, but whether they had given it “a shape that lasts.”
What I noticed at the pool hall
Lately, I’ve started going to a pool hall.
Watching the good players, you notice something.
Before every shot, they always do the same things.
Walk around the table and check the layout.
Chalk up.
Choose the ball to aim at.
Picture where the cue ball will go.
Get down into the stance. Steady the breath.
The same order, every time.
The same rhythm, every time.
And then the cue goes through.
The routine makes the result
One day, I asked one of the regulars.
“You do the same thing before every shot, don’t you?”
“Ah, the routine. If I skip it, nothing goes in for me.”
The cut, the speed, the tip position, the cue ball’s line.
Only once all of that is settled in your head do you get down into the stance.
Step into a shot while it’s still vague, and the result wobbles too.
“Shoot without a picture in your head, and the balls won’t answer you.”
For some reason, those words made me think of the serums.
It was the same thing
Looking back, those three serums were the same.
What I was using them for was vague.
I hadn’t even decided when to use them.
They began with “somehow, this seems good,” and ended with “somehow.”
In pool terms, it was like stepping into a shot with no picture in my head.
The words I had heard at the pool hall that day seemed to apply just as well to beauty.
Decide on just one.
Decide on the timing.
Put it where you can do it without thinking.
That alone might be enough to make it last.
The other side of admiration
An actress’s skin on television.
A good player’s shot at the pool hall.
Look only at the results, and they’re dazzling.
But behind them are small routines, every day.
Plain, unseen, repeated time.
That person’s skin lies at the end of the same care, yesterday and today.
That person’s shot lies at the end of the same routine, built up every time.
Maybe what we admire isn’t the result, but the time spent keeping at it.
One thing, for now
I cut it down to one serum.
It sits at the very front of the sink, ready for after my bath.
There’s no time to think before I pick it up.
That alone, and it has lasted two months now.
Pool was the same.
One by one, I decided what to do before each shot.
And I do them in the same order, every time.
I’m not good yet.
My skin hasn’t changed dramatically, either.
But it’s lasting.
The fact that it lasts has become a reason, a little more than before, to believe in myself.
Why not make pool your next beauty habit?
👉 You’re not the only one who couldn’t keep it up.
👉 See the Yokohama Billiard Hall Guide
👉 Billiards resources from Japan and around the world, organized by purpose: Billiards in Depth (latest updated hourly)
