Ikigai - The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life

Ikigai a Japanese concept to define a worthy life. It is explained by a simple venn diagram which involves 4 simple factors:

1) What you love

2) What you are good at

3) What the world needs 

4) What you can be paid for

If one can figure out this one thing that satisfies these 4 factors and continue to practice or do something that fits this "model", then life can be much more meaningful and stress free.

This book "Ikigai - The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life" by Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles explores this concept in a very interesting and practical way to remind us what is imminent for us to lead a fulfilling life. The book starts off with a school of psychotherapy termed "Logotherapy" developed by a psychiatrist - Viktor Frankl. Logotherapy the way I interpret is all about finding a meaning for our life. Each individual has his/her own meaning for life and if only we can identify the meaning, life can be be a lot more well...simply meaningful.  Friedrich Nietzsche (who coined my favourite Serenity prayer) says "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how."

Many of us are in the "corporate" life style chasing targets / objectives that we most often don't have a clue about. A quote from this book, "Executives get lost in the details of obsessive planning , creating strategies to hide the fact that they don't have a clear objective. It's like heading out to the sea with a map but no destination. ". We most often have a very detailed map - to show where things are at or how to achieve / perform a specific task. What we often miss is the "why" or the "how". Only a Why or How will help one or an organization to reach a particular destination in the map.

An important concept of Ikigai is to be in the flow. There are a few books focusing a lot more on that topic, such as "Power of now" by Eckhart Tolle and Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" by  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. While those books are different topics to be discussed in detail, it is a very liberating experience when you experience the "flow". It most often happens for me when I am behind a camera. To quote Albert Einstein, "A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell on future." It is no secret why I am happy behind a camera in spite of all the tricky situations it puts me under.

Talking about happiness, yet another quote from this book from Washington Burnap - "The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for." This fundamentally summarizes Ikigai.

Personally, I am glad to have identified photography as my "Ikigai". Whenever I am behind the camera, I find myself in the "flow" with a sincere attempt to capture beautiful moments and memories as they happen. 

What is your Ikigai?

C