From Kenko’s Essays in Idleness:
“You can decide to do something today, but before you manage it some unexpected and urgent business will arise to overwhelm your plan for the day, or the person you are waiting for is unable to come, or someone unexpected arrives, or something you were relying on turns out differently, so that the only things that go well are things you hadn’t anticipated. Matters that threatened to be difficult prove easy, while those that should be straightforward turn out to cause you great pains. The progress of each passing day is quite unlike your anticipation of it. And the same goes for a year – and for a life. Yet if you assume that everything you anticipate will go awry, you find that in fact some things don’t, which makes it all the more difficult to plan. The only certain truth to learn is that all is uncertain.”
You can plan anything, a trip especially, for a long time and unless you expect the unexpected, it is unlikely that the result will be what you imagined. If you can prepare for accepting the unexpected, your travels will go well.
Phrase of the Day: Wabi-sabi is a Japanese aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. It involves an appreciation of the beauty that can be found in the imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete, and a recognition that beauty is often impermanent. The concept is often associated with the Japanese tea ceremony, and involves an appreciation of the simple, rustic, and unpretentious. It is a way of seeing beauty in the ordinary and the everyday, and finding joy in the imperfect. Hiragana: わびさび Kanji: 侘び寂び