I came across a book by Kenta Nagakura titled “People Who Move Around Succeed” (Idō suru hito wa umaku iku) at a bookstore, and I decided to read it.
In this post, I’d like to share my impressions.
“People Who Move Around Succeed” by Kenta Nagakura
Overall impressions
First of all, this book is remarkably easy to read. I say that because I’ve never been much of a reader and I know I read quite slowly, yet I got through this one with little effort.
Normally it takes me two or three days to finish about 200 pages, and more often than not I lose interest partway through and give up entirely.
Yet even I managed to read this book in about three hours in total.
Honestly, I was pretty surprised.
I’ll try not to give too much of the content away, but sharing my impressions requires at least a minimal summary, so if you want to go in fresh, you may want to skip this post.
Centered on “movement,” the book’s key concept, it is essentially saying: “If you want to change your life, move!!!” (to put it far too simply).
As the author notes in the preface, this is not a philosophy everyone will accept, and it will surely draw criticism.
Still, it resonated with me, and since this is one legitimate way to live, I think it will fit some readers perfectly.
There is nothing dubious about the content; it reads as though the author is earnestly setting down what he genuinely believes.
Also, a common shortcoming of self-help books is that you understand what you ought to do but get little detail on how to actually pull it off. I found there was very little of that problem here.
Because it gives a solid answer to “So what do I do starting tomorrow?”, I think many readers will come away feeling glad they read it.
Where I agree and where I don’t
The book has six chapters, and my personal take is that I broadly agree with all of them except Chapter 4, which contained a fair number of points I couldn’t quite accept.
Chapters 1 through 3 were written with real clarity.
(What follows may come across as presumptuous, so please bear with me.)
The critical view of society, and the fact that the author writes about things both from a first-person perspective and from a bird’s-eye view, made the book very easy to follow.
It touches on things we tend to forget in daily life, and its perspective makes you think, “Yes, that’s exactly how it looks from the outside.” It prompted me to reflect on my own situation—whether I should change my current life, what I’m missing, and so on.
Chapter 4 lays out concretely what one should do, but the advice stems from the author’s own vantage point, and my honest impression is that it’s hard to apply directly to myself.
That said, it’s only hard to apply as-is; you can simply shift perspective, and in fact it works well as a prompt to come up with your own alternative options.
As for the rest, my impressions are the same as for Chapters 1–3.
My own thoughts after reading
The title makes clear that “movement” is the theme, and it was precisely because the title resonated with me so strongly that I bought the book at the store.
I also think one reason the book was such an easy read is that my own thinking is quite close to the author’s.
You could call it a critique of living a conventional life.
My own motto is that I want to live an enjoyable life and not the same life as everyone else, so I hope to do whatever it takes to avoid falling into a conventional way of living.
I think everyone has had this thought at least once, and has probably acted on it, but the book made me consider how our social structures and culture make it hard to do so.
Lately I’ve been questioning whether that is actually good or bad.
Books about how to succeed tend to say, quite bluntly, that Japanese culture is no good and that you should go abroad. In other words, they urge you to break free from being pacified into conformity.
This book is more logical, and of course it doesn’t go quite as far as that.
Still, in the end it does seem to suggest that breaking away from being an ordinary person is the path to success.
And that is probably true.
So-called successful people are a minority, so becoming one requires breaking away from the majority.
That said, it is also a fact that society functions thanks to the culture and mindset of the majority.
Why is Japan so safe? Why is general education so widely shared here?
I think it is precisely because of the way Japan is—its culture, its systems, its ways of thinking.
That’s why, although we tend to focus only on how Japan compares unfavorably with other countries, I’ve come to realize recently that there must be reasons why things turned out this way, and advantages that come with it.
In this book, the author also says that living abroad allowed him to see both the good and bad of Japan and the good and bad of other countries.
It’s obvious, but I think it’s something we easily forget.
Rating
My rating for this book is
★★★★☆
.
To change your life, the first step is simply learning that such a way of thinking exists.
On that basis, this book is very easy to understand, and I think it also offers clear guidance on what to do next.
That said, for people who don’t want to change their lives, the information may not be necessary.
Since I can’t quite recommend it to everyone, I personally settled on four stars.
It’s a very good book, and I personally enjoyed reading it a great deal.
