Awakening Your Ikigai: How the Japanese Wake Up to Joy and Purpose Every Day

Precisely because an encounter is ephemeral, it must be taken seriously. Life, after all, is filled with things that happen only once. The realization of the ‘onceness’ of life’s encounters and pleasures provides the foundations for the Japanese conceptualization of ikigai, and is central to the Japanese philosophy of life. When you take notice of the small details of life, nothing is repeated. Every opportunity is special.

A man is like a forest; individual and yet connected and dependent on others for growth.

There is no absolute formula for happiness—each unique condition of life can serve as the foundation for happiness in its own unique way. You can be happy when married with children, or when married without children. You can be happy when you are single, without a college degree, or with one. You can be happy when you are slim, you can be happy when you are overweight. You can be happy when living in a warm climate as in California, you can be happy when living in Montana, where you have severe winter conditions. As a sumo wrestler, you can be happy when you make it to yokozuna, or you can be happy while remaining one of the underdogs all your career, doing small chores, never giving up.

If you can make the process of making the effort your primary source of happiness, then you have succeeded in the most important challenge of your life.

Ikigai resides in the realm of small things. The morning air, the cup of coffee, the ray of sunshine, the massaging of octopus meat and the American president’s praise are on equal footing. Only those who can recognize the richness of this whole spectrum really appreciate and enjoy it.

Just possibly, ikigai makes a Peter Pan of all of us. And that is not necessarily a bad thing. Let us all be twelve years old! Youthfulness of mind is important in ikigai, but so is commitment and passion, however seemingly insignificant your goal.

At a certain point, a casual observer might feel that these pursuers of perfection are going over the top, and that the effort is too much. Just at that moment, something miraculous happens. You realize that there is actually further depth to the quality you are pursuing. There is a breakthrough, or the production of something completely different. With the creation of a new genre of products, a brand new market emerges, in which people are prepared to pay premium prices for qualities previously unimagined.

The Japanese do not need grandiose motivational frameworks to keep going, but rely more on the little rituals in their daily routines.

Isn’t it interesting how an element , which might not be appreciated by itself, turns out to contribute to the overall quality when blended with elements of different characters? It is like the essence of life itself. The complex interaction between various elements in an organic system makes life robust and sustainable.

Ikigai reside no reino das pequenas coisas. O ar matinal, a xícara de café, o raio de sol, o massagear da carne de polvo e o elogio do presidente norte-americano estão em pé de igualdade. Só aqueles capazes de reconhecer a riqueza desse espectro podem realmente apreciá-la e senti-la. Essa é uma lição importante do ikigai.

Kodawari é um padrão pessoal, ao qual o indivíduo adere de forma decidida. Costuma ser visto, embora nem sempre usado, em referência a um nível de qualidade ou ao profissionalismo que o indivíduo segue. É uma atitude, muitas vezes mantida pela vida da pessoa, que constitui um elemento central do ikigai. Kodawari é pessoal por natureza, e é uma manifestação de orgulho pelo que se faz. Em resumo, kodawari é uma abordagem pela qual se toma cuidado extraordinário com detalhes bem pequenos.

A crença no efêmero do ikigai, estar no aqui e agora (o quinto pilar), é possivelmente o mais profundo dos cinco pilares do ikigai.

Faça a alegria das pequenas coisas funcionar para você, e assim você também pode começar seu ikigai de manhã.