Finding Wholeheartedness

Bringing our whole selves along for the ride

The ride is eerily smooth. I forget we’re traveling 200 mph until I glance at the kaleidoscopic blur of scenery rushing by through the window. We’re 500 miles from Tokyo, heading as far north as the line will take us on Japan’s fastest bullet train, the Hayabusa.

Sunset has dimmed the view outside, leaving a reflection of me and my partner in the well-lit cabin. On a prior trip to Tokyo, we had joked about coming back to explore more. Now here we are, about to enter one of the longest and deepest undersea tunnels connecting Japan’s main island to the northern island of Hokkaido. We had moved out of our homes in California and placed all our belongings into storage to live and work remotely in Japan for two months. Now we’re moments from crossing into a land we've never set foot on.

Sky above Furano, Hokkaido. September 2023.

Hell yeah and no

This is the kind of adventure that inhabits my dreams. My gut reaction when the possibility arose was a full-body "yes" — the kind Derek Sivers had in mind when he penned "hell yeah or no". 

Real life, however, is more complex than a pithy saying can capture. The "hell yeah" was soon joined by voices of fear and feelings of uncertainty. Two months is a long time to be away from home. I’ll miss so many gatherings and important meetings. That's a lot of time to spend with just one person. 

Major life choices have the allure of beautiful vistas. We eagerly rush forward to take in the view, stopping short of the ledge when we realize how far we could fall.

Fear and overwhelm

Travel typically means packing a few bags and returning home in a week. We were packing our entire lives and vacating our homes. 

Moving out is typically followed by moving in. We’d be adrift for two months, living out of suitcases and fighting for sweet slumber on unfamiliar beds. 

People typically have a place to call home. Ours would remain uncertain until we returned to look for housing.

Two months in a foreign country requires careful research and planning. We can’t just waltz into a long trip abroad. There’s no safety net when we can't speak the language and friends are half a world away. 

Add all this on top of work and making sure my parents are set while I'm away. I wasn’t sleeping much. I was overwhelmed and suddenly aware of a surprising fear of change.

Despite the cacophony of emotions and thoughts, my commitment to the idea never wavered. We planned, packed, and moved out like pros, even soaking in some farewell gatherings before jetting off to Tokyo. 

Now everything is sunshine and rainbows, right? After the thrill of completing our move and arriving in Japan, the overwhelm did not disappear.

Finding a rhythm is a persistent challenge. The usual 1 PM meetings become 5 AM meetings taken half-asleep in Airbnb bathrooms and empty hotel lobbies to not wake my sleeping partner. 9 AM meetings become 1 AM meetings I prepare for late into the night before dozing off and missing completely. Every thought of interacting with friends and family requires the extra mental friction of converting time zones. Real-time conversations are sparse. Relationships fall out of sync. 

Public transportation is amazing, if I understood Japanese. I do not, so the extensive network of timely buses and trains presents a never ending puzzle. We're not even supposed to be on this very train right now. We stumbled onboard only to discover the Hayabusa is one of the few bullet trains that require seat reservations we didn’t book. At every stop, someone might board with the ticket to our seat, and we'd have to get up in shame to find an empty seat that could be taken again at the next stop. All we want to do on this four hour train ride is relax and nap, not sweat under the specter of getting kicked off.

Then there's spending every second with a partner, sometimes under adverse conditions. We experience the full range of one another, from when we're at our caffeinated best, to when we're defeated after rushing through crowds with luggage in tow, only to miss a bus for the second time. All this on top of heightened irritation from sweltering humidity and relentless mosquitos. California’s mild weather has made me soft. 

This was one of the easiest crazy ideas to say "hell yeah" to. So how do I make sense of my apprehension? How do we engage wholeheartedly with life amid the uncertainty, fear, and overwhelm that accompanies significant change?

Welcome the intruders

I realized I was treating fear and overwhelm like intruders in my life. I was wasting energy fighting inextricable parts of myself. I could acknowledge them and treat them like valuable sources of information rather than adversaries. I could welcome in the full emotional richness and complexity that comes with being human.

What did they have to say? The fear told me I'm near the frontier of my growth edge — exactly where I want to be to go beyond. The overwhelm told me my life is full of things that matter — a problem I’m grateful to have.

Difficult emotions make more sense when I differentiate the content from the intention. Consider that well-meaning friend giving you questionable advice or asking uncomfortable questions. Their intention is to help. We appreciate them and listen, even if the content of their advice is misguided.

Living wholeheartedly doesn't mean you need 100% conviction. It means proceeding with your chosen commitments while bringing your whole self along for the ride — even the parts that aren't fully aligned.

The Hayabusa reaches the end of the line at Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto, the northernmost station in Japan. With our whole selves, we step off the train and into the rest of our adventure. I'm reminded that to travel is to grow. It’s a way to make sense of questions lingering inside that illuminate anew under the light of a different sky. It's an invitation for the inevitable mistakes and grace we must find for ourselves when all else seems lost in translation. And to travel with a partner is the privilege of creating our own notion of home to carry with us wherever we go.

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My wholehearted thanks to Kat Koh, Alexandra Allen, Henri James, and Trupthi Shetty for their thoughts and conversations while writing this essay.