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Didn't Use My Brain Sooner

7:35 a.m.

That's when the boys and girls on our street meet outside and start walking to school. Up until today Kenzo and Osamu were usually still eating breakfast or if they were fast already brushing their teeth. Kenzo loved looking out the window and even opening it on non-winter mornings to say bye-bye to the "big" elementary school kids as they set off on their walk to school.

Today was the day Kenzo got to meet outside at 7:35 a.m. and walk to school with his neighborhood friends. 


A while back I kept getting asked if we were going to send the boys to an international school. There are a couple here in Sendai and one I think is pretty well known. Eri and I talked about it. Of course there are benefits to sending your kids to an international school (there better be for that price tag), but in the end I made the call based on my values and what I am trying to establish as part of our family's values; namely, take care of your neighbors and choose valuable experiences over opportunistic ones.


For me that automatically made the decision easy. Kenzo walking to the local elementary school with our neighbors' kids, who he loves and plays with all the time, and whose parents are our friends and partners in raising good people, was the obvious choice. I know there's the path where Kenzo and Osamu take the bus to the fancy international school and have amazing experiences there with students from all over the world and solidify their bilingualism, but the lens I looked through showed me Kenzo as an adult thinking back on his childhood and remembering looking out the living room window and wishing to walk to school with his beloved neighborhood friends and then having to close the curtain and get on a bus to go across town to a school where everyone is amazing and cosmopolitan but... something is missing.

I am not making a case for mediocrity. I simply value human relationships and the so-called "mundane" over... well, nothing. I also value having faith in my beliefs without comparison to others' beliefs. Strongly. 

So Kenzo goes to Japanese public school now. And he's gonna have the time of his life simply because of the joy that is naturally derived by living life with meaning and avoiding the "get ahead" mentality. I believe that getting ahead naturally happens when you establish clear values, live by those values, and ignore the ones who would steer you away from that.

I haven't always adhered to that, so I am a hypocrite to a certain extent. I'm doing better these days, taking positive steps fueled by regret that I didn't use my brain sooner.

Aaaaand then there's this guy.


Osamu tagged along for the first walk to school wearing his sunglasses and being super aloof.

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