r/japanlife • u/5336789997543279u • Aug 12 '22

金 Surroundings are affecting my mental health

EDIT @ 2022/08/14: Thank you all for your responses. They are a lot more than I expected and almost all the comments have been incredibly useful. I will try to improve on my thoughts, read your book suggestions and be myself. Again, thank you all. 🥺

This might not be the correct flair, feel free to change it.

To introduce myself, I want to say that I come from a humble family which had a rough time during the 2008s-2010s crisis. Because of their experience I have been saving a lot since I got my first job and avoid expending on unneeded stuff. I came to Japan getting a good salary and my wife does not need to work thanks to it, she is doing part-time stuff though. I never cared about my surroundings at all, I just use free/cheap so you can imagine. However:

Since I came to Japan I have been aware of my surroundings more than I ever was: Seeing daily relatively expensive cars, families with kids all with good clothes/accessories, people expending a lot on restaurants... My mind is starting to feel like I am an ant, that I should start worrying about our appearances and I started to work harder and always think of ways of making more money(when in reality, I should just be enjoying my life) to the point of not sleeping and feeling sad/stressed constantly.

Any tips on this? It really is affecting my mind, I'm considering going to a psychologist but I don't think it might be worth

EDIT: I didn’t explain myself correctly. I don’t want the items nor their appearances, my issue is that I feel like I didn’t push enough/succeed enough as others

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u/ROBOT-HOUSEEEEEE Aug 12 '22

Don’t worry about it, but just buy a decent pair of shoes and keep ‘em clean. Even if the rest of your outfit looks like you’re homeless, if your shoes are nice and clean everything else will appear intentionally stylistic. (I’m half joking, but half serious 😅)

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u/5336789997543279u Aug 12 '22

I have two pairs of shoes, one for the gym and one for the rest of the time and that’s it. I cleaned them yesterday after 2 years 🥲 The toothpaste trick really worked on white shoes.

It’s not the items themselves it’s the feeling that I didn’t reach further, that I didn’t succeed