9. Ikigai and icky guys

I’d love to visit Japan.

It’s absolutely steeped in culture and history, pretty much every Japanese person I’ve ever met has been unbelievably friendly, and from the #content I’ve seen (and now stolen), it looks unreal...

In answer to your question; nope. As surprising as this may seem, despite having a mighty 94 Insta followers, I’m not actually an influencer for the Japanese Tourism Board.

Instead, I’m fanboying Japan because they have a very simple, and seemingly effective, framework for living a life of meaning and happiness. This is good!

It's good, cos although that kind of life sounds delightful, it’s also the kind of life that a lot of us are utterly useless at living.

We’ve all got our own thoughts, ideas and opinions on what constitutes a good life, and of course, we’ve all tried a range of things in pursuit of that kind of life, whether that’s:

• Getting on the sesh every night

• Trying to make as much money as possible

• Spending £854 on new clothes that we don't need

• Chucking a photo on social media to get a few likes in

• Having a week of smoothies, squats and yoga

• Or even contemplating throwing it all in, jetting off to China, and becoming a Buddhist Monk.

In fact, today, you’ll find me writing from a Tibetan Monastery.

Lol jk. Having said that, Eastern Philosophy can boast a plethora (good word) of amazing ideas, outlooks and practices when it comes to living a more tranquil life… which of course, us Westerners love nothing more than to take, misinterpret and generally botch.

So, in keeping with tradition, I was keen to have a little look at a Japanese concept for finding meaning and happiness, called ‘Ikigai’.

Firstly, I believe it’s pronounced ‘eeky-guy’ (with a smile!)... and not ‘icky-guy’ (that’s your pal’s uncle).

In English, ‘Ikigai’ roughly translates to ‘a reason for being’ - and the Japanese encourage us to find our Ikigai in order to get that sense of fulfillment and happiness that we so often crave.

The premise of Ikigai (and by premise, I mean my fairly basic understanding) is relatively straight forward. Essentially, there are 4 components to it, which is to do something that:

1. We love

2. We’re good at

3. The world needs

4. We can get paid for

To look at each component in a bit more detail:

1. Something that we love doing: This is pretty self-explanatory. We like doing stuff that we like doing (you’re welcome for that insight!) - whether that’s exercise (shout out to my fellow Strava wankers), taking pics of sunsets, reading (Blogs and Dogs obvs), cutting shapes on TikTok, baking banana bread (is that still a thing?) or even getting a headshot on Call of Duty, it feels good to be totally absorbed in an activity, or ‘in the zone’.

2. Something that we’re good at: We also like doing things that we’re good at (this is top quality stuff today, right!?). On this one, it doesn’t actually have to be something that we’re currently good at, but at least have the appetite to get better in.

These two points are probably quite obvious, and potentially more straightforward to find. The next two are slightly more challenging. But hey, let’s not let that put us off...

3. Something the world needs: A good kick up the arse!!! Nah, though that may well be the case, this more means contributing to something bigger than ourselves.

As a species, we’ve evolved to feel good when we feel needed.

In hunter-gatherer times, every tribe member was crucial to the overall mission of survival. The cook was just as important as the cleaner, and the hunter was just as important as the builder. Everyone was valued and their contribution made an immediately obvious positive difference to the lives of others. Meaningful stuff.

Now, fast forward a few thousand years, and it’s not quite the same thing. A lot of us work in offices (well, not at the moment) for big corporations, filling the pockets of the big wigs, and not actually seeing the positive tangible benefit of our work. And if we were to be let go tomorrow, it doesn’t feel like it would make a massive difference. Not quite as meaningful stuff.

So, to find our Ikigai, we’re encouraged to look for something that has a visibly positive effect on the people around us.

4. Something we can get paid well for: We need money to live, which is a bit of an inconvenience at times really.

The final strand of the Ikigai ‘formula’ is to find something that can pay us well enough, so that we can dedicate enough time to it in order to live comfortably. I’m sure we’ve all seen the studies demonstrating no correlation between money and happiness after a certain amount of income, but we do need a base level in order to live comfortably.

If we can get involved with something that ticks all of these boxes, then we’ll be able to say konnichiwa to our ikigai.

The Japanese are pretty switched on, aren't they? They were onto something with the invention of the CD player, the camera phone, the Playstation and our beloved emojis 😎... and it feels like they’re definitely onto something with the concept of Ikigai.

So, whenever we get that overly familiar feeling that there’s something missing in our lives, we may want to take a hit of some ancient Eastern Asian wisdom.

And for that, all I can say is arigato and sayonara ㊗️🙌