journal features

an old acquaintance

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Tokyo, 2019.12.12

This afternoon I met with an old acquaintance - a headhunter I'd met with in the frantic days before I ultimately left Japan in late 2010. It turned out that he'd also gone "home", in his case to Mongolia. Unlike me, he'd launched a successful business and now owns the largest placement agency in that country. He's back in Japan to branch out to this country. In particular, he wants to start bringing his countrymen here.

He said he'd look into roles for me, and I told him I'd put him in touch with an executive search agent I know - someone who might be able to get his business going here.

rand()m quote

Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.

—John Gardner