It’s OK! You Won’t Die!

Finally, the COVID pandemic seems to be over. As I send off this article, COVID would be designated as a class 5 infectious disease; what we see around us offers hope that the pandemic is changing.

Since the founding of ZYX in 1986, we have faced multiple catastrophes. Our founding was immediately followed by the death of the Showa Emperor. Then came the Great Hanshin Earthquake, the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York, the Lehman Shock, and the Great Northeast Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. In every case already ordered work disappeared like soap bubbles, and sales fell to distressing levels. That said the seventh wave of the pandemic was really hard. We had encouraged ourselves to press ahead by believing that the seventh wave would not be as severe as the first six. But there seemed to be no end to the pandemic, and we continued to suffer the damage we had suffered for nearly three years.

We stood up time and time again. To suppress anxiety and loneliness, we borrowed strength from many people.
Our NAKAMA cheered us on with the words, “It’s OK. You won’t die.”

When I was 26, I endured being disabled by panic. There was still no medical name for my illness, but I was diagnosed as having symptoms of anxiety neurosis and hyperventilation. I was in Akihabara, returning from a project-completed party, when suddenly my heartbeat accelerated. Suddenly it felt like a drumroll, and I panicked, overcome with fear that I had only seconds to live.

Back then mobile phones were still not widespread. I entered a public telephone box and, for the first time in my life, pushed the emergency button to summon an ambulance. I was carried into the emergency room, where an electrocardiogram and ultrasound scan were performed. The results indicated tachycardia, an accelerated heart rate and nothing more. The causes were said to be overwork and not enough sleep. “This isn’t a joke,” I thought. I had never experienced such shortness of breath or fear of dying. I couldn’t believe that dealing with overwork and lack of sleep would solve the problem. But no organic reason for it was found. For more than 30 years I had this experience, some frequently, sometimes every few months.

I called an ambulance five or six times and on many occasions was taken in a wheelchair to a station care room. Once I was on an express train and it was a long time before the next stop. My anxiety became unendurable, and I asked an elderly woman sitting beside me to hold my hand. My behavior suggested that I was a pervert, but seeing my pale face and purple lips, the old woman panicked and tightly gripped my hand.

Then cardiology departments appeared and it became possible to use the Internet to search for illnesses. Whatever the cause, panic wasn’t fatal. I understood that I wouldn’t die. Still, the fear of death when it happened never changed. I continued to chant my mantra.

“It’s OK! You won’t die!” It’s part of life. People die. As long as we are not on the verge of dying, we can fix almost anything. We have failed in our work. We have harmed the company.
Has anyone died? No one is dead. It’s OK.
Don’t worry! Change and do better. Once you are dead, you are done.
That is why we stand up again, however many times it takes.
The future belongs to those with strong desires.

Even in these, the worst days in ZYX’s history, the pandemic seems to be ending. Our company should be our Secure Zone. I don’t intend to equate work and war. But we need to cultivate the courage to restore hearts and bodies exhausted by external meetings and production. We need our Secure Zone to get rid of our loneliness and anxiety. But that doesn’t make it a lukewarm bath. It is, instead, a place where we can shed our armor, feel trusted and connected, and say to our NAKAMA “It’s OK. You won’t die.”

During the pandemic, ZYX recommended telework. Even so, there were NAKAMA who came in to our office. I was one of them. In the last three years, ZYX has not lost a single NAKAMA. Even so, something was missing, the raw smell when a scrum unites and becomes one. More than the company’s performance, this fact should fill us with pride.

ZYX NAKAMA! I am proud to be part of our team.
Even in these times, let’s continue to chant,
“It’s OK. So long as we aren’t dead! We are OK!”

I was 26 when, while being transported in the ambulance after my first panic attack, I was, for the first time thought I was dying. What flashed through my mind was what would happen to the things hidden from my parents under the bed in my bedroom in our family’s house? (laughs).

But I was still alive!

ZYX Inc. CEO
Fumiaki Nakaya