Ikigai
I recently read a short book about the Japanese concept of Ikigai. It hails from a time when publishers were scrambling to find the new Hygge.
The book is okay but a bit dashed-off and unfocussed. The key concept, however, is worth some thought. Ikigai is about the search for a personal meaning — a raison d’etre — in life.
The diagram above (oft-used when explaining Ikigai online) makes it look more complicated than it is.
The authors claim that healthy, long-lived people (including those in the world’s “blue zones” where lifespans regularly exceed 100) generally have a strong sense of Ikigai. I can see how a sense of mission would keep a person going strong. Not that we should think of Ikigai as a means to an end.
I have noticed that Escapologists are often quite driven to find the right path, the one that leads to a truer purpose in life. It’s why we quit our day jobs: while rotting in an office, we often experience profound separation anxiety from the (often unlikely, often poorly remunerated) thing we’re really supposed to be doing in life, i.e. from our Ikigai.
The concept is not so far removed from the “life audit” I encourage people, in Escape Everything!, to make as a way to brainstorm how to spend one’s time on Earth.
Do you have Ikigai?
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About Robert Wringham
Robert Wringham is the editor of New Escapologist. He also writes books and articles. Read more at wringham.co.uk
Hi Rob! I work as an Emergency doctor and it comes close to being ikigai for me.
Sometimes it can be hard to feel like it’s truly “what the world needs” when so many health issues arise, and should be addressed, upstream of emergency medicine. Give people healthy food, walkable communities, no financial stress, and parents who aren’t working full-time during their childhood, and you’ve solved 85% of the issues I treat – but it feels right to help the sick anyway. I’m very lucky!
I do think it’s still the wrong idea to completely invest my sense of identity and worth in my job though. It would be easy to be one-dimensional if all I cared for was work, so I temper my enthusiasm for emergency medicine with plenty of enthusiasm for other life projects, and try very hard not to be that doctor who only talks about work. Boring!
Thank you for keeping this blog going for so long. It’s a valuable and ongoing reminder that work isn’t, and shouldn’t be, the sole source of value in my life.
Thank you for your service, Russell! Yes, for God’s sake make sure you have some work-life balance, but at the same time it’s a bit different to have “saving life” as your ikigai than the usual daily trudge. Speaking of prevention/upstreaming, I just read How Not to Die by Devi Sridhar. My medically unqualified opinion is that it was brilliant; I think you’d probably like it too.