Japanese philosophy of Wabi Sabi helping Gen Z to cope with post-pandemic blues

Navigating your career in a post-pandemic world is complicated and ominous thoughts can consume your mind, especially for fresh graduates and college students. Many might not have got their dream job as envisioned after graduation or didn't end their semester with the grades they wanted. It's easy to ball up in your room, and drown in your sorrows, and isolate yourself from friends and family.

Many people assume a rosy picture of life after college but might not be prepared for the real picture. The constant rejection, waiting weeks for a reply back from the job you applied for, going through numerous rounds of interviews only to be turned away.

In college, everyone draws up their post-graduation plans. But life is unpredictable, and sometimes things can go haywire. I can relate to these emotions, because I had a plan and depended on it, and when things didn’t go my way I felt like an utter failure.

These experiences can break your psyche. Your feelings and emotions are valid, but they can also devour your mind. But what if I told you to embrace your failures and that you have the power to see your flaws as beautiful. Our world is obsessed with perfection and uniformity. But in East Asian philosophy, specifically Japan, it’s the opposite. This ancient Japanese philosophy is known as Wabi Sabi, which seems to have gripped the post-pandemic world. So, as a twenty-something trying to navigate this post pandemic world, I decided to find out what it was about and if it could help me cope better.

What is Wabi Sabi?

The book ‘Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for Perfectly Imperfect Life’ by Beth Kempton explained that Wabi Sabi is a traditional Japanese aesthetic that stems from the Buddhist teachings of the three marks of existence (which are principles):

Impermanence

Suffering

The emptiness of or absence of self-nature

Kempton stated that Wabi Sabi originated as two separate words. Wabi is about finding beauty in simplicity, and Sabi is concerned with the passage of time. These two conjoined words remind us of the transient nature of life.

Wabi Sabi rejects the Western notion of perfection. The West...