Achieving Ikigai

I recently came across this book on instagram, instantly captivated by its title and cover (so pretty!), immediately logged on to mphonline, ordered the book and it arrived on my doorstep 3 days later, and of course, I took my own sweet time to read this book.

Now, what is ikigai? Before I bought this book, I had already known a bit about what it means. Ikigai is the 'Reason for Being'. Ikigai is the reason of you waking up in the morning. Of course, we all had to (be forced) to wake up in the morning at certain times of our lives, but the unbearable thoughts of having to go to work or to class, is that considered an 'ikigai'? Of course not.

Ikigai is a combination of your passion, mission, profession and vocation, as beautifully depicted in this Venn Diagram. When you are sleeping at night, you just couldn't wait to wake up in the morning to do your ikigai. Is ikigai a verb? or a noun? haha. I'm hopeless in this. 

Anyway, this book focuses more on the healthy lifestyle of the Japanese centenarians living in the Island of Okinawa, Japan. It delves into multiple topics dedicated on discovering the secrets of aging well and living beyond your 80s.

Perhaps it's my own fault for expecting more than what had been written in this book. After all, doesn't the topic states 'The Japanese Secrets to a Long and Happy Lifestyle'? I was kind of hoping that this book would say more about 'How to achieve your ikigai'. I had already known what is my ikigai but I have a hard time to employ the concept of ikigai into my daily lives.

What's my ikigai? It's writing, of course! It's something I'm not sure I am that good at, but that I can do it, LOL. I love writing, I have this delusional idea that the world needs to read something from me (again, LOL) and I hope I can be paid for it. Even if I don't get paid, I would continue writing. Even if no one reads it. Now that's ikigai rightt..

Thus, if I managed to become a full-time paid writer and that the world loves my writings, then I am looking forward to wake up every morning just to write or do research about my books/articles. Hence for now, my ikigai is merely a dream. I love my current job but writing is my ikigai. Like, you know, being a pharmacist is my profession while being a writer is my passion/dream/ikigai. For now, I could try to incorporate some ikigai into my life, if not whole.

Again, about the secrets to a long and healthy life, to be truthful, I am not really keen on living that long. But I intend to be healthy and free from diseases though. I met many patients who could only drink 500 ml of water in a day and had to restrict their diets and calorie intakes. Not fun, right? So I must get healthy from now on so that I could enjoy eating more foods, LOL.  So, this book talks about the healthy diets of the Japanese, also the physical activities that they do.

My favourite chapter from this book is chapter IV: Find Flow in Everything You Do. Bruce Lee said, 'Be Like Water'. Be in constant flow in whatever you do, meaning, be in immense concentration and at the same time, find enjoyment in it up to the point where you won't realize that the time flies when you are doing things that you love.

This includes doing mundane tasks such as washing the dishes, laundry and many others. What I can derive from this topic is, in every task that must be done, there must be an element of fun. You do the job and snap! The job's a game. And every task you undertake, becomes a piece of cake! A lark, a spree, it's very clear to see! For a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. Are you singing this with me? Hahaha. So it's the same like what Mary Poppins said.

You have to find that purpose, that enjoyment when doing something. It might be hard, but it's there, somewhere. And oh, the author also said that we should not stick to the same routine when carrying out those dull daily tasks, or else the job's going to be more boring. We could try to insert more varieties or rhythms into those monotonous activities. Perhaps we could, dance when washing the dishes? Hahaha you can figure it out by yourself.

So, yes. This book isn't exactly life-changing to me, but it does offer some interesting facts about ikigai on the whole and also its socio-cultural impact of onto the Japanese people.

I hope I could read more books on Ikigai in the future. So, to you who's reading this, what is your ikigai? Have you achieved it, and if you haven't, how are you going to achieve it?