Hi! My name is Keisuke.
I played soccer for 10 years and experienced burnout. I also struggle with anxiety and a speech impediment. To better understand and cope with these challenges, I started studying psychology. Now, I don’t use the word “solve” anymore because I learned that some problems can’t be completely fixed. Instead, I focus on how to live in harmony with my problems. This shift in thinking has helped me a lot, and I want to share what I’ve learned.
We can’t erase our difficulties, but we can live with them in a new way. It’s okay not to be okay. It’s not about stopping the problem, but about what we can do after it happens. We can live better.
Here’s a bit about my sports history and the difficulties I faced:
Ages 8–12 (Elementary School)
- Started playing soccer and really enjoyed it.
- Was selected for the prefecture training center (Ken Trecen) and got a bit full of myself.
- Had a stutter but didn’t realize it myself.
Ages 12–15 (Junior High School)
- Continued enjoying soccer, but I was so focused on having a girlfriend that it distracted me.
- Failed to make the prefecture training center team again and became sulky about it.
- Experienced periods of feeling drained (脱力感) in my third year.
- Became aware of my stutter and developed a fear of public speaking.
Ages 15–18 (High School)
- Felt fear playing as a starter due to unstable performance.
- Played in both the first and second teams frequently.
- Afraid of making mistakes and being blamed by teammates.
- Fear of speaking in public increased; stuttering made me even more shy.
- Injured my knee badly when crashing into a concrete wall, which sometimes kept me from playing.
- Avoided talking to skilled athletes because I feared being shouted at by them.
- Ironically, I feared my own teammates more than my opponents.
Age 18+
- Continued fear of public speaking.
- Avoided job hunting and did not work immediately after university.
- Worked as an engineer but became exhausted by life in Tokyo.
- When handing in my resignation, I saw my boss’s face without a mask for the first time and thought he looked like Mike Wazowski (from Monsters, Inc.).
Age 25–Present
- Moved to the countryside without a job.
- Decided to help myself and others facing similar struggles.
- Started studying psychology and created this blog.
