rob: Very interesting take. Thanks for the contribution, as always. It sucks when you can’t get your own mind to listen to reason. Not at all trying to say that I understand what you’ve been going through, but I have definitely been too deep inside my own head and unable to guide myself to daylight. In many ways, the timing of when I came to Japan allowed me to run away from it all and reinvent myself. Not without a lot of internal confusion and angst, though. For me, it was the habits I had gotten myself into that contributed to a vicious cycle of irritation, anger, apathy, loneliness, guilt, and more anger. Suddenly being in a world where I couldn’t speak the language–and my silly lifestyle justifications didn’t fly–forced me to change my ways. Realizing that there are many things in life that I have absolutely no control over has helped me to achieve a higher overall sense of calm, which allows me to channel my addictive personality toward work, family and friends. (Poor Motoko gets clobbered with affection sometimes;-) Still need some big adjustments, but I rarely find myself getting angry these days. Hopefully, it’s not just defeated acceptance, but something more mature and respectable than that:-)