On Ikigai — our life’s purpose

I started thinking about this topic recently after I read the book Ikigai written by Hector Garcia and Francesco Morales. The authors explore the secrets of long life in Okinawa and four other communities around the world. A very interesting compilation based on the authors visiting these communities and living with these people. I highly recommend you give this a read yourself.

We all have one life and to live it fully should be our motto. How we do so matters for it not only defines who we are, but also impacts the quality of our life and of those around us. So how do we do that. Do we introspect, and delve into our faults to become aware of who we are and our inner selves so we can become better, or do we look into the future to see what our life should be. Most often we tend to dwell on the negatives asking ourselves questions such as why something happened the way it did? Why it happened to us? Why me? Why do we behave in a particular fashion? It seems like the Why question happens naturally to us.

I had and AHA 😤 moment recently after I watched a Ted Talk on Self Awareness by Tasha Eurich. Tasha posits that the “Why” question takes us backward and to move forward we should be asking the “What” question ( please watch her talk on You Tube) if you are curious.

So if we are too look forward where do we begin, do we ask — ”What our life could be in the future if we did X or Y?” Or do we just give things a try. Let’s say your life’s been all rhetoric and no action, should you pause and take some action. For some great man once said — ”It better to have tried and failed to not have tried at all”. Now, that’s usually easier when you are younger and unattached. You are out to conquer the world and prove that you can be better than what everyone else ever imagined. But when you are older and hopefully wiser you have a lot more inertia to make changes. It’s easier to criticize than actually try to change.

I don’t mean change the world for that’s hard. We should try something even harder , change ourselves. What a different place this world could become if we changed ourselves. What if we stopped finding fault in others? What if we learnt to accept things as they are? What if we start doing the things we always wanted to do? We can write (share our mind), draw (learn to sketch), sing even if we have an abhorrent voice along with an unsuspecting stranger on Smule (😂), garden, sow a few seeds and watch them sprout and then bloom and then fruit. We can go for long walks enjoying the country side at dawn or dusk so we can enjoy nature at its best, cook and like my better half always says make things that others like.

An important distinction that. We spend most of our lives feeding our egos and doing things what we like and what we want. But with cooking it’s different, unless you are cooking small portions you have to make sure that others will eat your work of Art. That requires you to know more about those you are cooking for. Even in a close family sometimes that’s not easy for an amateur as the dish turns out in ways that your kids especially won’t think twice before telling you how yucky it is. It could be something as simple as oats or pancakes. If we evolved we learnt to understand what others want. Maybe there is an Aha there for us — an important question we could ask ourselves.

When we do something that benefits others we feel gratified. Moving from self gratification to satisfaction by aiding others is an important step in our Ikigai. It’s an unconscious shift in our being where we learn to listen more than talk, see more than look, taste more than eat, sense more than touch, feel more than the touch.

It’s a topical shift that will enrich our life and make it more fulfilling. We have most of it when we are young but then at some point in our teens when our ego starts to solidify we seem to lose touch with our carefree nature that in my mind defines our Ikigai. We don’t have to go far to find it, if we are willing to set our spirit to be free we will open our hearts and minds and be more welcoming of those around us.

So it’s not just what we do but how we do it also matters. When we strive to learn about others we grow. When we share our conflicts and work for a solutions that eliminates it, in our relationships our efforts have a multiplier effect. Having meaningful relationships provide us a good sense of purpose. Life’s simple there are those that have and those don’t. When we realize that and try to restore that balance we define our own life’s purpose. From a hunter, gatherer and hoarder we turn into a sharer. It’s like you are playing the game of “Life” and you drew the “Share the Wealth” card. Our Ikigai is there for us to find we just don’t have to look too hard we just need to open our hearts and minds.