who lived in a tiny town called Estevan, Saskatchewan. Inside the envelope, I found a handmade cardboard card and a small stack of photographs and photocopies. Gerry was an avid gardener and a former jazz musician. He was writing to tell me how much he enjoyed the radio show each night. Gerry also sent along photos of blossoms in his garden. He had Oscar Peterson roses and he had set up speakers outside, so he could listen to jazz all day long as he tended his flowers. Gerry had sent me the most wonderful gift. He showed that the music and the stories mattered to him every day.
Many more listeners would share their own stories of the delight they found in the radio show I hosted. I sent delight out each show through the radio waves, and the listeners sent delight back to me in return.
Figuring out your life’s purpose may feel like a daunting task. Where do you start? Is there science that supports ‘life purpose’? What steps do you take, and how do you know you’re on the right path? These are all overwhelming questions that keep people from even beginning the Ikigai journey. Instead, people tend to default to the beliefs that society and institutionalized education have peddled to us for years because they are what is safe and familiar.
We’ve been told that when you get a good education, you get a good job, and then you live a good life. But there is more. Follow the Ikigai map and you will see for yourself.
The Ikigai map has four simple directions to follow:
1.Do what you love
2.Do what you’re good at
3.Do what the world needs
4.Do what you can be rewarded for
These directions are deceptively simple, but they take work to understand and put into action. The good news is that the work you put into following these directions will result in immediate rewards.
Ikigai comes in two parts. They are half Ikigai and full Ikigai. Half Ikigai focuses on you: What do you love and what are you good at? Full Ikigai shows you the full cycle of Ikigai: seeing how doing what you love, and what you’re good at, provides for the world and flows rewards back to you. As soon as you commit to your half Ikigai, you will begin to see benefits. Your half Ikigai will bring you clearer understanding of yourself and you can begin your work.
Eventually, you will begin to understand that Ikigai is more enjoyable when you share it with the world. That’s when magic starts to happen. You’ll be on the path to realizing your full Ikigai, and your work will be as easy to do as following a star in the sky.
The Story of Ikigai
Ikigai is an idea that comes from the people on the tiny islands of Okinawa, Japan. If you were to look at a world globe, you would find Okinawa equal distances away from the southern tip of Japan and the east coast of China. To find Okinawa on a globe, make sure you have a magnifying glass handy. The islands are microscopic. They look as small as grains of salt.
Okinawa seems an impossible place for people to live and thrive. It’s tiny. It’s incredibly hot. Some might even believe that the islands are inhospitable. Yet many have called Okinawa home for tens of thousands of years. Today, almost one-and-a-half million people live in Okinawa Prefecture.
Even though Ikigai has been a concept for over a thousand years
(from the Heian period, 794–1185 CE), only the Okinawans and a
few Japanese outside of the islands have been the lucky beneficiaries of its lessons.
Originally, Ikigai started out as another word: ikikai, or “life shell.”
In the waters surrounding Okinawa, or Ryukyu, as it was known in the Heian period, there was something special living and growing below the water’s surface. Ryukyu was the keeper of its own special sunken treasure. On the ocean floor lay oysters with beautiful red thorny shells, or kai. These shells were so beautiful and rare that people throughout Asia wanted to own and wear them as jewelry. The shells were as valuable as gems.
The red thorny shells were found on the ocean floor surrounding Ryukyu. They were part of the daily harvest of seafood in Ryukyu, gathered by the Ama. Ama are female divers renowned for their ability to dive deep down to gather shellfish and other treasures from the sea bed.
The Ama of Ryukyu would gather on the shores in the early morning hours when the ocean was calm. If the waters were clear, they were able to see deep and far into the water. With their hair tied back, and dressed in only a white loincloth, the Ama would swim out into the ocean, pulling a large wooden bucket along with them. When they had swum out deep enough, they’d hold onto the side of the floating bucket and dip their faces into the water looking for bounty below. When something grabbed their interest, they’d dive down as deep as sixty feet to push over rocks and poke around the coral with sticks.
If they were lucky, they’d find a red thorny oyster. They’d grab the oyster and return to the surface, where they’d plunk it in their floating bucket.
Ama start their training as young girls and continue to dive into their old age. Diving is something they are good at and that they love to do. They gather food and red thorny shells (kai) for others to enjoy, and they get paid well to do it. Ama share a sisterhood with their daily get-togethers. They talk about what’s going on around their town. They gossip and giggle before and after they dive. These incredible women were early embracers of the benefits of Ikigai.
The waters have always been cold, but the Ama believe that the job was tailor-made for women. They believe that they enjoy an extra layer of fat that keeps them warm. The men can’t handle the cold the way the Ama do. In addition, over the centuries, the Ama have developed the ability to hold their breath for up to two minutes at a time. As they make their way to the surface, they breathe out with a haunting whistling sound made deep in their throats. Ama were like mermaids who helped feed the people while they earned a living doing what they love.
Ama are still working in the same traditional way today in Japan and Korea. They still gather at dawn. They still gossip and giggle. They still dive without the aid of scuba gear. Ama are the very essence of Ikigai.
Thanks to the Ama. the shells were a valuable part of the Ryukyu economy. Eventually ikikai then morphed into meaning more than life shell. Ikikai became Ikigai. Ikigai then is made up of two words: iki translates to life, gai means worth. Ikigai = life’s worth.
The Okinawans and Japanese believe in Ikigai. In fact, the Japanese are well-known practitioners of the art of mastery in whatever they pursue. This means doing what they love, doing what they’re good at, doing what the world needs, and doing what they can be rewarded for. This is a practice that has inspired masters in a wide variety of Japanese careers. Ikigai is part of a balanced life that is productive and enjoyable.
Masaaki Hiroi is an elderly Japanese man with a joyful face and smiling
