Secret Trick (裏技 Urazawa)

Post-World War II

After World War 2, millions of Japanese citizens were devastated financially, but their families and friends depended on each other. They had no choice but to survive. On the streets of Tokyo, one would see scared orphan babies scouring the streets for food, and widowed wives attempting to regain the strength to live for their kids. All of their lives were flipped upside down, seemingly overnight. And in the midst of apocalyptic rubble, these Japanese denizens needed to use their wits to thrive in a ravaged economy. 

As this generation rebuilt their economy, they found some tips and tricks along the way. And each family passed these tricks on to future generations and would eventually make their way to today. 

Similar to a clan that teaches its sword style to their devotees, every family eventually had secret tricks that kept passing on from generation to generation, which they called "Urazawa". 

Urazawa, or "secret tricks", are usually passed via word-of-mouth to descendants. They consist of anything that has to do with efficiency. It can be anything such as how to cook using minimal ingredients, developing cost-conscious cleaning methods, folding laundry, odor control, and more. 

Mindset

War affects families from all over the world, and it DESTROYS lives. And in a way, these families all had to use Urazawa to rebuild their family line. 

Limited finances allowed them to troubleshoot their situation in order to leverage what they did have and maximize it. While doing so, they slowly rebuilt their lives by stacking pennies, which eventually turned into nickels, dimes, quarters, and dollar bills. Then they parlayed their new status to eventually regain and rebuild their family dynasties. They taught their children these habits and refined them into even bigger secret tricks. 

The mindset of troubleshooting and hope was what strengthened these families from war-stricken environments.

Secret Trick to Happiness

In "The Book of 5 Rings," Miyamoto Musashi often repeats that some ideas or philosophies can only be discovered upon studying. And one of those philosophies or ideas that he once stated was about combat stance: "...There shouldn't be any wrinkles on your forehead or in the area between your eyes..."¹

What this meant was that one should have a combat stance that should be firm, but also relaxed enough to be adaptive to stress. By creasing the area between the eyes, one will overly tax their nervous system and create additional stress that will cause them to lose fights. By being calm yet firm, while having a good balance of the two, one will be able to get into a flow state that will allow them to utilize all of their skills harmoniously. 

Likewise, by relaxing the muscles between the eyes, one will benefit from this by looking happier to people, learning to be conscious of how stress is affecting their bodies and which stressors are causing them to frown their faces. 

An example might be they might understand that whenever they are overworking AND not eating enough food, they overcompensate for this by grinding work more, which causes them to stress out more. They might find that if they eliminate one of the factors (hungriness), they might be able to consciously crease their eyebrow muscles less. 

ENDLESS Secret Tricks

Keep in mind, these secret tricks are not secret methods. They are tips and tricks created to provide the user with endless imaginative ways to use their situation to the best of their ability. It is meant to be created and added onto in endlessly creative ways to TROUBLESHOOT their way out from negative situations to more POSITIVE ones. 

One might be able to create THOUSANDS of happiness tricks that, when combined, can multiply their happiness over time while inducing greater self-awareness. Perhaps instead of happiness, one might want to focus on PRODUCTIVITY. 

Comment below if you know of any secret tricks that you can pass onto others. 

Bibliography

1. Musashi M. The Book of Five Rings.; 2012. https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25030231M/The_book_of_five_rings

2. Wikipedia contributors. Urawaza. Wikipedia. Published online February 10, 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urawaza