NO DAY, no moment, no interaction is trivial. When I’m going through something, I often have my day changed unexpectedly by students at work teaching English in Japan — everyday people I talk to for 40 minutes.

Today it was a 64-year-old man who gets up at 3 am, works ‘till 4pm, cooks for his family then comes to learn English at 9pm.

He was the happiest dude I’ve ever met and we could barely communicate with words, yet we were laughing the whole time.

Just shows that we create our own reality.

It’s not always easy, but we’re living proof of what’s possible.

Living, breathing embodiments of love if we choose to be.

While it’s work and there are aspects I’m not 100% psyched about, I’ll look back years from now and remember meeting people in Japan — from middle schoolers to those in their eighties — people I would never in a million years talk to in really any other situation.

And I get to know them a bit.

I peer behind the veil of what makes us human, me from Los Angeles, them from a town on the outskirts of Osaka.

What makes us happy, what we fear, what we love; we really aren’t so different.

The key is to never stop playing.

Never lose that childlike wonder.

Stay passionate, curious, about the simplest things which strike your fancy.

Chase what gives you life, and your heart will remain forever young.