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Forget Finding Your Purpose — Collect Reasons To Live Instead
The real meaning behind ikigai
The pressure to find my purpose used to suffocate me.
I’d read so many books about how it was the secret to happiness that not having one made me anxious. Was I wasting my life? I was jealous of the people who seemed to have it all worked out. As you know life is complex which makes the idea of one perfect solution so addictive.
Yet not enough people talk about how fragile it is.
When you build your entire self-worth on a single pillar everything comes crashing down if it cracks. It’s much healthier to base it on as many pillars as you can instead. You can be far more resilient by being well-rounded than focusing all your energy on one thing.
Our obsession with simplicity has made us distort meaningful foreign concepts too. Global interest in the Japanese concept of Ikigai has increased by 100 times in the past eight years. You might know it as something which you love, you’re good at, the world needs and makes you money.
Yet this isn’t Ikigai at all.
Ikigai is simply a reason to live. You can and should have many! These can and should adapt over time rather than be fixed for your entire life. Ikigai is about what brings you joy in the…
