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The Art of Ikigai — Living a Long and Meaningful Life
Find your reasons for being.
Western tradition is to work and then retire.
You spend 30–40 years in a job and earn good money. If you’re lucky you’re happy with your life and go on vacation twice a year.
Then you retire and spend your time at home, in the garden, or move to a foreign country to spend your money.
But you stop doing meaningful things.
Although, most people do.
Not in Okinawa, Japan — a place known as one of the “Blue Zones”.
People live significantly longer here.
They have a purpose in their life and they don’t retire. The concept of “retirement” doesn’t exist here.
They found their Ikigai — their reason for being.
The 4 Fundamentals of Ikigai
In the concept of Ikigai, 4 major elements combined represent the recipe for a meaningful life:
- The things you love.
- The things you are good at.
- The things the world needs.
- The things you get paid for.
Sometimes these 4 things align, that’s when you’ve got everything in the right place.
Then you have a great purpose.
And you feel meaningful.
That sounds like something really good, and something that everybody wants to achieve at some point in their lives.
But it isn’t easy, and not for everybody — unfortunately.
You’d be in the middle of this Ikigai diagram.
Most people strive towards getting a lot of money, and sometimes love that will keep them away from the other 2 elements because they take so much time.
But mastering something you love doing is as important.
And don’t forget to keep your moral standards high. You don’t get eternal satisfaction for doing immoral things that pay well.
