Taking care of the garden in your heart

Inamori shared with Seiwajuku workshop members this motto: “Good desire motivates you, no private interests.” What he mentioned is quoted with “”.

“When you ambitiously raise a tremendous goal, and desire to make it come true, you must keep asking yourself where such ambition comes from. Does it come from your self-satisfaction or has an altruistic mind driven you? Altruistic means good motivation, and the good implies people in the world universally agree this is good. What motivates you must be convincing for all the stakeholders. When you develop a project, you must check your motivation. If the motives are good and selfless, then the results must turn to good ones. You would without a doubt succeed.”

To confirm this motivation, it is important to check the following points:

Are you honest with yourself?
Whom are you satisfying in the end?

Let me explain a bit more about those check points.

１．Are you honest with yourself?

Mr. Inamori said as follows.

“For about six months, night after night, even if I came home after drinking, I kept asking myself before I went to bed whether my motivation was good or selfish. I said I wanted to start a telecommunications business to realize a much cheaper system to Japanese people, but every day I asked myself ‘ Hey Kazuo, is that true that there was no selfish interest behind it?’ To encourage me to fight with the giant competitor NTT, I had to justify what I was trying to do. I wanted to make sure that we never started this business out of greed for fame. Until I was convinced that I had no self-interest in this business, I kept asking myself this question. As this motivation check is related to the mindset in the life equation(formula), we should check this very carefully.”

→ For the great mission, for the world, for the people, sometimes those words sound hypocritical. Even a great entrepreneur like Mr. Inamori spends more than six months looking inside himself. I wonder how long it would take for an ordinary person like me. It is also questionable whether I can reach such depth in my mind even though I spend time. Therefore, I think it’s important to always be an honest and trustworthy person. Being honest, at the end of the day, would bring us good results.

２．Whom are you satisfying in the end?

Mr. Inamori said as follows.

“Good motivation here simply means goodness, honesty, altruism, kindness, a compassionate mind, beauty, and even a purified feeling. In other words, you can check by asking yourself if your motive is beautiful, good, helpful, kind, or considerate? This question looks easy to fill in if you are honest and be aware who to ultimately fulfill.”

In truth, we all may want to be respected and admired by others, but if you suppress your desires, good deeds will be somehow controlled and imposed. This looks like “artificial virtue”. Virtue, in its nature, looks invisible and never asks for rewards. Regardless of the outcome, I want to remember that I am the one who is helped, and that I am fortunate to have you.

When we are busy, we easily forget to pay attention to the state of our mind. Even when we are working hard, our heart and soul should not be abandoned. I would like to keep taking good care of my emotions and mind. This looks like a “garden” in “my heart” where good energy and thoughts were naturally cultivated. We must plant flowers, consider giving enough water and sun lights, and restore the good and natural soil condition to foster green lives. I thought that this would lead to “purifying our mind and souls”.