IDEAS FOR GOODWaking up every morning to get on the same packed train. Then, suddenly a thought pops into your mind. “What am I working for?” “Oh no, train delay due to an incident… I’ll be late for work. Just my luck.”
Life in the city paralyses our sense of what it means to be human more than we think. Living in Tokyo and getting a steady job at a large enterprise used to be the “Japanese dream” for many young professionals. But reality proved different. In Japan, low birthrates and an aging population are getting more acute, and average annual income is decreasing about 400,000 yen. Despite being a developed country, one in seven children is suffering poverty and has an average of less than 20 minutes per day to spend time with their families. What will echo back when we throw the question about essentials of life into the abyss?
We revisit an event called “The future of soil and career — the reason we chose rural areas”, which was held at Pasona’s TRAVEL HUB MIX, Tokyo in January. This event attempted to redefine the common sense of urban life, reconsidered a fulfilling way of life and work and shared the present situation of Japanese agriculture and its influence on health. Through the event, we’ll find understand the Japanese’s new search for career success, and its link to the return to rural roots.
The importance of nature and man is in its soil
Daisuke Kaneko is the chairman and executive director of Tanenochikara Inc., the host company of this event. He joined Pasona Group Inc. as a new graduate and worked in the city without nature. Last August, Kaneko moved to Awaji island, Hyogo prefecture to start a new business around diet and health, which is to become the foundation of a safe and sustainable society for raising children.
What’s the connection the soil and a person’s career?
Kaneko: To all of us working in the city right now, do we live with soil? Humans have less genes than water fleas. Yet, humans can live life actively by co-existing with over 100 trillion bacteria inside our bodies. It is said that bacteria in the soil and those in our bodies are almost the same. Do you think people who live in the city are co-existing with various bacteria? As the number and diversity of bacteria decrease, our bodies become unable to co-exist with bacteria. In order to increase bacteria in our bodies, we must digest vegetables cultivated by living soil. This is an essential and as-per-normal activity for creatures. Does the scheme of the present society and how we work keep us healthy?
Learning about ‘living with nature’ in the rural areas
The most important thing is to know that consumers have choices, and we must choose with our own will. Knowing this, how should we then live and work in the present society?
Ryo Kato, Chief director of Social Innovation Division for Pasona Group Inc., is supporting people who live in urban areas to work in the rural. Having flown all over Japan, he realized the importance of living with nature. When he joined reconstruction support after the earthquake disaster in Tohoku, he was shocked by learning something her couldn’t while working in the city. Embankments of 14 meters high are under construction by the coast. It is also a job-creating project. However, with such high embankment, the ocean will be out of view. So, Kato asked a local woman about what she thinks of the construction.
Kato: Sure enough, she disapproved of it. The reason is because in order to build embankment, you need to cut the mountain to bulk-up land subsidence caused by the tsunami. Key industries of her residence are agriculture and fishery. Water and soil that support rich agriculture come from the mountain. Infiltrated precipitation percolates into the soil of the mountain and later flows into the sea, enriching sea-water that nurture fishes. She shared, “We always benefit from the mountain. I cannot think of cutting it for the soil. Cutting the mountain is poignantly painful.” It was then that I realized what living with nature is. Currently, people who connect with the local people in various ways are called “relationship population”, and that number is increasing. They don’t live in the area, but their numbers are larger than tourists. These people from the city build relationship with locals, and hopefully there will be more people who feel the sensation of living with nature.
“Connection” brings stability and the ability to question what’s common sense
In cities that are away from nature, “common sense” in the urban environment is formed without scrutiny. According to a survey, more and more job-hunting students are looking for work at major enterprises for stability. So, what is stability in the first place?
Takaaki Kameda is the Recruitment business division supervisory department manager of Pasona Group Inc. As a new graduate, Kameda dreamt of becoming a digital nomad and got a job as an engineer. Then he made a career change to human resource industry, wanting to improve working conditions for those who work in the IT industry. Kameda thinks work and life will change dramatically by the influence of Robotics, AI and VR/AR technologies in the years to come. Therefore, “adaptability to change” will make the biggest contribution to stability.
In the past, working at big enterprises might have meant stability. However, this is becoming out-of-date. Business models require innovation, but some cannot adapt to change.
Kameda: You may feel anxious about this, but adaptability is a natural ability we all have. We can maintain this by training or by being conscious of it. I’m asking all of you to try to always question common sense, and to keep taking action. Nowadays almost everybody checks their smartphones as soon as they get up in the morning, but this was not the case ten years ago. We need to be aware that what’s common sense today now may become irrelevant in the future, so be prepared for change. As technology brings wide-ranging transformations to society, we are required to possess unique experience, knowledge and sensibility. To develop these strengths, it is important to move towards what you wish to do.
Kaneko: I agree. There is no need to be too ambitious, but I want to be proud enough to show my children in the future how I’d lived. I want to create a society of great diversity, diversity of people and choices. To do so, I’m sending a message that we need to redefine what we have been taking for granted. By sharing “true information” with the world that the mass media are reluctant to report, I think that society will steadily make change. In a time when you don’t know what to believe, you can only trust words spoken from reliable, significant people.
Discussing work in the future from the panelist’s perspectives
Definition of what is common sense will become diverse in the days to come. How will our work style change in the future? Each panelist shared their perspectives.
Kameda: From IT perspective, almost 24 years ago Windows 95 was released. Then 12 years after that smartphone came to existence. A major change in the IT field comes in approximately every 10 years. This year, 5G commercial pre-service will kick off. Working practices and life style will dramatically change with Robotics, AI and VR/AR technologies.
Kato: I think individuals will become the key players in the years to come. I have 13 different business cards and 3,500 friends on Facebook. When I post new projects on my Facebook, I find at least several business matchings. I feel the infrastructure to reach individual goals is ready now. For instance, social media has let individuals themselves become a media and gather people. We can raise money using crowd funding, or learn new things with high quality contents on YouTube.
Kaneko: After moving to Awaji island, I realized I had no “sensibility” in urban life. As technology innovation progresses, many jobs may be replaced by IT/Robotics. However, I think that is why more attention will be focused on how humans live and work. In the future, our “sensibility” and “free will” might help and work together with AI in the society. When you think of what will be left in humans, in my opinion, it’s the significance of working and living.
Looking at career’s connection with soil: from ‘becoming’ to ‘existing’
Kaneko focused on “soil” and said from here on out, the society will shift from “becoming” to “existing”.
Kaneko: In the past, we had an answer on happiness: working for the government or becoming a doctor makes us happy. However, nowadays there is no guarantee for happiness or success by “becoming” something. What’s significant for us now is “how we are”. Don’t live someone else’s life. It’s very important to feel the sensibility that you are “existing” and that you are living. I want all of you to feel that “existing” feeling near the soil, which is hard to experience in the city.
This article was originally published on IDEAS FOR GOOD.
Translated by Chisato Shizume.
