4 April 2016

ikigai

(生き甲斐, pronounced [ee(ih)-kee-gahy])

– a Japanese concept meaning “a reason for being”. Everyone, according to the Japanese, has an ikigai. Finding it requires a deep and often lengthy search of self. Such a search is regarded as being very important, since it is believed that discovery of one’s ikigai brings satisfaction and meaning to life. Examples include work, hobbies and raising children.

The word ikigai is usually used to indicate the source of value in one’s life or the things that make one’s life worthwhile. Secondly, the word is used to refer to mental and spiritual circumstances under which individuals feel that their lives are valuable. It’s not necessarily linked to one’s economic status or the present state of society. Even if a person feels that the present is dark, but they have a goal in mind, they may feel ikigai. Behaviours that make us feel ikigai are not actions which we are forced to take—these are natural and spontaneous actions.

Origin

The term ikigai is composed of two Japanese words: iki (生き?), referring to life, and kai (甲斐?), which roughly means “the realisation of what one expects and hopes for”.

History

In the culture of Okinawa, ikigai is thought of as “a reason to get up in the morning”; that is, a reason to enjoy life. In a TED Talk, Dan Buettner suggested ikigai as one of the reasons people in the area had such long lives.

Example

In the article named Ikigai — jibun no kanosei, kaikasaseru katei (“Ikigai: the process of allowing the self’s possibilities to blossom”) Kobayashi Tsukasa says that “people can feel real ikigai only when, on the basis of personal maturity, the satisfaction of various desires, love and happiness, encounters with others, and a sense of the value of life, they proceed toward self-realization.”

– Wikipedia

Today’s quote

Cowardice asks the question, ‘is it safe?’
Expediency asks the question, ‘is it politic?’
Vanity asks the question, ‘is it popular?’
But conscience asks the question, ‘is it right?’
And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right.

– Dr Martin Luther King

On this day

4 April 1928 – birth of Maya Angelou (born Marguerite Ann Johnson), American author, poet and civil rights activist. Maya wrote seven autobiographies, three books of essays, and several books of poems. She had numerous occupations, including fry cook, dancer, actor, director and journalist. Her civil rights activism saw her work with Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Died 28 May 2014.

4 April 1968 – assassination of Martin Luther King. American civil rights activist and clergyman. Born 15 January 1929.