FAR-FETCHED FICTION became my day-to-day life when I moved to Japan a year and a half ago. Hardly a day goes by where I’m untouched with awe, but it’s not always easy. Far from it.

I hoped that when I left home, some of my problems would decide to stay behind (wouldn’t that be lovely). But that’s not how it works. Our problems come along no matter where we go, for it’s an illusion that life will magically improve by changing what’s on the outside without doing the work on the inside.

No life is without its challenges, but that’s okay, for we’re made to grow from the friction.

“Humans are antifragile,” write the evolutionary biologists Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying in A Hunter Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century.

“We grow stronger with exposure to manageable risks, with the pushing of boundaries. As we grow into adults, exposure to discomfort and uncertainty — physical, emotional, and intellectual — is necessary if we are to become our best selves.”

Throughout my life, adventure has called to me from the unknown, for I long to live a story worth telling.

That doesn’t mean I must do wild shit just to tell others. A story worth telling is one that matters to nobody but me — it’s the story about who we could be if we dared to live a life true to ourselves, not the one expected of us.

Despite battling chronic back pain and the uncertainty of what I’d find here, I had to leave home and stumble toward the life of my dreams, as the situation will never be perfect to reach for the stars; we just choose to reach in spite of gravity, to fly despite the storm, or let it hold us down.

Stumbling forth despite the pain, the fear and the uncertainty has given me direction, instilling my life with a vivid sense of purpose. That’s all I could ever hope for.

I could have stayed home, imagining I’d never heal my body without ideal conditions and the comfort of my friends, my family, my hometown. I could have bought into the fear instead of trusting my inner voice.

But I didn’t. What’s beautiful is that what I found by leaving is what I truly need to handle what I hoped to leave behind. I’ve found boundless inspiration, love, and depth of experience, which comes not only from the light, but very often from the darkness.

“The only real wealth you can carry through life and death is profoundness of experience,” says the educator and yogi, Sadhguru.

Whether the day is pain free or if my body feels broken, each day is meaningful, and that meaning is my fuel, my wealth. The profundity of experience derived from the adventure of daily life in a foreign country is what my spirit craves above all else.

Like I said, it’s not always easy. There are days when my back pain makes me feel completely despondent. And that’s when I have to dig deep. I look for signs and ask the universe for help.

That’s precisely why I’m not only healing here to get back to where I was. I’m building something new out of this experience: a deeper, more vulnerable and antifragile soul. I’ve realized that I can handle any challenge as I laugh and I cry and I pursue what lights me up inside, often while simply managing the pain.

It feels like this injury has taken so much from me. Yet the path to healing has given me so, so much in return, for overcoming this test with my spirit, my joy, and my smile intact isn’t only getting me back to where I was. It’s taking me to a new level.

I know I’ll be pain-free one day soon.

All I can do is cherish this ride, both the ups and the downs, because when I look back it won’t be the pain which remains, but beauty shining through the cracks of time; the good, the city I called home, my friends.

And despite the obstacles I’ve faced, I’ll just be glad that I decided to go.

またね (mata ne, see you again), Osaka. You’ll forever be my Japan home town. My eyes and heart have opened to you under unexpected snowfall and the late dusk of summer, orange autumn maple leaves, ephemeral gusts of spring.

I’ve known you unlike I’ve known any other city. Yet a city is nothing but lights and roads, concrete and glass, telephone lines and moving water.

It’s not so much the city, but what the city holds that makes it come alive: memories as shadows of the past, history and culture — people — a sea of smiles and sparks of laughter which turn to roaring flames amongst friends.

If it was just me, truly alone, would my love for Osaka run so deep? I doubt it. It’s not the ’80s neon lights which drip in the rain, the green canal, my tiny apartment or the bubbling takoyaki I’ll miss about this chapter. It’s the people.

I found a tribe of dreamers in Osaka, doers, decent human beings looking for something different. It’s the people who make a city home, not only the friends we come to know, but the passing strangers in the streets, the increasingly familiar faces in the shops of our neighborhood, the drifting souls beneath the lights; the beating hearts and skyward eyes I find where no words pass.

It’s you beautiful souls who made Osaka home — now I know I got family wherever I go. To all of those I’m lucky enough to have crossed paths with on this adventure so far, you’ll always have me, and I you.

Cities are the chapters from the book of my life. People, those I love and will always cherish, are the words on the page which fill this empty book. We are the story worth telling.

Onward.

The next chapter begins, Tokyo Vince.