Finding your Ikigai

Ikigai has been described as a path to finding one's purpose. But what is it, exactly? Here's what I learned from the people who practice it every day.

Finding your ikigai. Source: Forbes, Bodetree, adapted from Francesc Morello.

Ikigai (pronounced: eek-ee-guy) has become a popular topic over the past decade. There have been several TEDx talks on it (for example: How to Ikigai) and a best-selling book I mentioned in my last post: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Healthy Life.

Something about our Western obsession with work performance and 'work-life' balance has crept into the discourse on Ikigai that never quite sat right with me. Should your job/work/profession be a critical part of your sense of purpose—that source of joy and meaning in your life—or is Ikigai about something more?

I may be described as a workaholic by some. I work almost constantly, juggling writing, speaking, teaching, science outreach, and research nearly daily. But it only sometimes feels like work. Staying busy with these things brings me joy. Even when relaxing and watching TV, I often find my hands busy cross-stitching fabrics or playing puzzle games on my phone. Is that what Ikigai is about? Staying happily busy? 

I've read books, watched the talks, and listened to podcasts on this subject, but I still had many questions I was eager to address. Luckily, through my work, I had the opportunity to visit a community where Ikigai is a regular part of life: the 'longevity village' of Ogimi (pronounced Oh-gee-me) in Okinawa.  

While there, I spoke with several people about Ikigai and what it meant to them. Here is what I learned from three of them.

Yuki, age: late 90's

Me with Yuki. I’m holding the origami bird she made. She is holding one of the origami spinning tops she makes out of old magazines as toys for the village children.

Yuki is a respected elder in the village. When we were first introduced, she was eager to share the pages where she and her recipes appeared in Dan Buettner's book, The Blue Zones Kitchen. Yuki is short in stature and with a twinkle in her eyes that peeks out above the face mask she wears to protect her health when new visitors come by. She was pretty independent, walking around her home barefoot on the soft tatami mats, using only a walking cane. 

After greeting us, she invited us to sit on the tatami mat floor at a low table, where we shared glasses of shikuwasa vinegar in water (a vinegar-based Citrus depressa lime juice that was surprisingly refreshing) and some traditional cookies. With the help of my interpreters (I can only speak basic pleasantries in Japanese), we dove into an array of topics around food, health, and life both today and in her youth. 

While we spoke, I immediately picked up on a few things. First, Yuki's hands were never still the entire time we met. In her lap, she folded and twisted bits of magazines pages into various works of origami—at first, there was a spinning top (a child's toy) she constructed, then came the little birds (see above picture of an origami bird in my hand) and a whole container of little origami boxes she uses to collect small bits of trash on the table into. 

When I asked her about some baskets I noticed in the corner, she happily brought them over, explaining how she'd woven them herself. I've recently taken up basketweaving as a hobby (though I still need to improve), and I just loved seeing the joy in her expression as she showed us one creation after another. 

As we enjoyed the cookies, she casually mentioned that these were the leftovers from the 1,000 cookies she'd baked for the school festival. When I asked about the other things she did for fun, she spoke fondly of her moai (pronounced: moh-ay, a friend group/supportive club). They meet up once per month for fun activities. The members of the previous moai of her childhood had all passed away, but she found a new group. “Everyone has a moai so that no one is alone,” she explained.