The RPG games I used to play as a child had some rather mysterious mechanics.
If you lose to an enemy, your money will decrease. However, your experience points will not decrease.
When I was a child, I took it for granted, but looking back as an adult, I realise how well it’s put together.
In the real world, too, money you’ve lost may never come back. But the experience remains.
When you start something new, the first year and the fifth year look completely different, even though you’re doing the same job.
At first, you don’t even know what it is you don’t understand. You’re so busy just getting through the tasks right in front of you that you can’t see the bigger picture. But as you carry on, a different perspective gradually begins to emerge. Where are you most likely to make a mistake? Whose advice should you trust? What mustn’t be put off? It wasn’t as though anyone had taught me this; I simply realised I’d come to feel that way.
Looking back, I realise that many of my current decisions stem not so much from my successes as from my failures. When something goes well, I can simply repeat it. But when I fail, it forces me to think about why it happened. The traces of that thinking remain deeply ingrained within me.
Gaining experience does not simply increase your knowledge; it changes the way you make judgements.
What does it mean for one’s judgement to change?
Even when faced with the same information, experienced people and those without experience see things differently. ‘This can wait’, ‘This needs to be dealt with urgently’, ‘I can trust what this person says’. When we try to put the reasoning behind these judgements into words, we often find we cannot explain them properly. Yet our bodies know.
It’s not clear-cut enough to be categorised as a sense, a flash of inspiration or a skill, yet it certainly exists. It would be great if it could be quantified like in a game, but that’s not how things work in reality. Even so, there’s a definite sense that it’s building up.
However, this experience will not accumulate unless you take action.
When watching sport on the television, your body does not react to a ball flying towards you from the other side of the screen. This is because you know for certain that it will not actually come your way. However, it is a different matter if you were actually at the venue. Your body is always ready to move, in case the ball might actually come your way. And if you were standing on the pitch as a player, you would certainly be in a position to react and take action.
Whether or not you can act at any given moment depends on your perception of where you are.
As long as you remain a bystander, you won’t gain any experience. Being at the venue, stepping onto the pitch, and taking part as a player—it is only through these actions that experiences become memories, and memories become experience.
When you spot a challenge, or when something feels off. By taking action without weighing up the pros and cons, you gain experience. The future can only be built on the foundation of that accumulated experience. I believe that hesitating to take on a challenge is tantamount to throwing away that experience.
Put yourself in a position where you are not just a bystander, but can become a player at any time. That is the first step towards turning experience into an asset.
What’s more, experience has another important characteristic.
It means you don’t need to compare yourself to others.
Money and achievements can be compared with those of others. But experiences exist only within yourself. What you have experienced is unique to you. It is not a matter of comparing whether you have more or less than someone else. It is an invisible asset that lies within you.
That is why I would rather prioritise gaining experience over avoiding failure. Even if I come up against an obstacle right in front of me, that experience will give me the strength to overcome the next one. Failure is not a loss, but an investment in the asset that is experience.
However, there is just one drawback to experience.
It is the fact that it cannot be stacked instead.
You can gain knowledge by reading books. You can also learn by listening to what others have to say. But experience is something you simply have to go through yourself.
You can borrow information. But you cannot borrow experience.
That’s why I want to remain a player for as long as possible.
It’s not about succeeding. It’s about gaining experience.
Experience doesn’t diminish. It remains with you, even if you fail. There’s no need to compare yourself with others. And that experience shapes your next decision.
Experience is a gift to your future self.
ATSUSHI KABASAWA
FARM8 Co. Ltd.,
Next chapter: ‘Regions That Become Constellations’ – Chapter 12: Snow That Is Not Yet Visible
