Because There’s Nothing Wrong With Working [Too] Hard
April 23rd, 2010
Ended up rewatching the last two episodes of Hataraki Man after reading the comments in our recent Anniv post, which brought me back to the time I started out blogging [we started out blogging, fellow chefs and I]. Was it fun? Spending hours writing episodic summaries, rewatching each episode about 3-4 times to catch almost all the details, reading the novel side-by-side the anime and jotting down the discrepancies and what fans are missing out on, or taking up days to come up with thoughts on a particular episode (which, by then, have already spanned a couple of eps due to delay). The struggle was definitely not, but during those times the drive to blog was so strong that I barely noticed it. And seeing at least 1 person appreciate what you wrote (even if you never really expected it), or having been given the otsukare! pat in the back by your co-blogger and/or commenters, is enough to make you feel that it was all worth it.
Did I do it simply to pander, for the hits and comments? What if I really loved what I was doing, I was just too absorbed to realize it then — dwelt too much on what I’ve lost realize that I was doing it out of love after all. 3 years of blogging, half of which was spent on a wandering journey, and perhaps all I really wanted was for someone to tell me…
And that perhaps…
(enclosing the next pic in a spoiler tag, just in case~)
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orly now? 
ok, that last pic is a joke And it’s not like I ended up drifting away from blogging because of that. I was just a coward, I guess; tried to find the easy way out of things, the easier way to blogging. When in fact, many times, the thorny path of toil is the more fulfilling one.
I remember back in high school, I spent this one Christmas vacation doing almost nothing except play Thousand Arms and Legend of Mana. Proud as I was that I beat these 2 games in one vacation, the overall feeling I had was that of guilt, shame, and emptiness over not having done anything substantial throughout that 1 month. It happened again in college when I chose the easy path of cowardice on that fateful 3rd trimester of my Frosh year (oh Rat-in-a-Maze I will never forget you); Boy did I regret that. But what’s done is done, no use sulking over the past, have to keep moving forward. Besides, if not for what happened, I wouldn’t have met one of the closest friends I have now 
Then there’s translating, which I’ve turned my back on since I started blogging. I always used blogging as my excuse, my escape. I’m not good at multitasking! I can’t translate well with this level of Nihongo and English!, I told myself. But perhaps I was just trying to run away from the daunting task of translating, a chapter of which can take me hourssss or daysss or even months to finish unless we’re talking about sappy shoujo romance stories. So yeah, I’ve been pretty much a quitter, and when the going gets tough I usually find myself on twitter. And for some people there’s also the Shared Items Society of Google Reader But now I realize that fulfillment lies in working harder, because it’s only then that I become better and stronger. Now until forever. Bow.
But I digress. Just recently I’ve been assigned as the sub-lead/module leader of our team, and while I’m still a little lost–haven’t been much of a leader even in my student days–I figured one of the best ways for me to cope with my lack of confidence is to work harder than anyone else. And I like it that way. When I’m not giving my best effort at work it feels like I’m cheating myself. I want to work hard in my job, in blogging, in translating… I hate quitting, I’M NOT QUITTING.
Blogging and translating are two of my creative outlets, so to speak. So there’s no way I’m giving this up without a fight. I’m still struggling in translating; very much, thank you. But this is something I have to go through if I want to get better. Same with blogging, though my dilemma here is quite different. I get plagued by a lot of post ideas, and even if I want to, there’s no way I can write all of them. Even when I should be sleeping, I end up unable to because I want to finish writing my darn post! Like right now. This is why I kept mentioning balance in the previous post. I want to manage my time well so that I can juggle work, blogging, and translating without burning out. Perhaps I should set some sort of schedule for myself: Spend my MWF free time translating, TTH on blogging/writing down drafts, and sleep no later than 12MN! Keep my notebook like I always do, to write down post ideas and drafts during my commute or anywhere else.
「仕事で失ったものそれを想い泣いた夜でも仕事に救われる朝もあるから」
“There are nights when you cry, dwelling on the sacrifices you make for your job. But… There are mornings, too, when your job is your salvation!” –Hiro Matsukata
;_;
Speaking of Hataraki Man (and omg finally we talk about anime!), some people might probably find the protagonist Hiro’s super workaholic nature to be absurd. As pp says, “No such thing as working that hard for a company you don’t own. No?” And while yes, working until the wee hours of the morning everyday is suicidal, but what can we do, Hiro likes her job so much she’s even willing to sacrifice sleep for it! Who are we to argue? And more importantly, THAT IS NOT THE POINT OF THE SHOW! I’m not sure if pp was really serious when he mentioned that Hataraki Man is full of lies, but I think there’s more to gain by looking beneath those “lies” (unrealistic aspects) and see the truth that lies within. Cheers!
so without further ado, *HATARAKI MODE ON!* *flashes Matsukata’s signature pose*
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