ikigai
ikigai = “raison d’être”
Only staying active will make you want to live a hundred years. (Japanese proverb)
Ikigai: “the happiness of always being busy”
Ichariba chode: “treat everyone like a brother, even if you’ve never met them before”
Yuimaaru: teamwork
Ikigai: the reason we get up in the morning
“iki” : “life”
“gai” : “to be worthwhile”
Moai: informal group of people with common interests who look out for one another
There is no word in Japanese for “retire”
The people who live the longest have 2 traits in common: a positive attitude, and a high degree of emotional awareness.
Existential frustration = a spiritual anguish
“Why do you not commit suicide?”
Logotherapy: helps you find reasons to live (Viktor Frankl)
- “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” - Viktor Frankl
- “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.” - Nietzsche
What we need is not a peaceful existence, but a challenge we can strive to meet by applying all the skills at our disposal. We don’t create the meaning of our life, we discover it.
Existential crisis is typical of modern societies in which people do what they are told to do, or what others do, rather than what they want to do.
They often try to fill the gap between what is expected of them and what they want for themselves with economic power or physical pleasure, or by numbing their senses. It can even lead to suicide.
Discovering one’s purpose in life helps an individual fill that existential void.
We each have a unique reason for being, which can be adjusted or transformed many times over the years.
Just as worry often brings about precisely the thing that was feared, excessive attention to a desire (”hyperintention”) can keep that desire from being fulfilled. Humor can break negative cycles and reduce anxiety.
Morita Therapy
We all have the capacity to do noble or terrible things. The side of the equation we end up on depends on our decisions, not the condition in which we find ourselves.
Many Western forms of therapy focus on modifying emotions. We tend to believe that what we think influences how we feel, which in turn influences how we act. In contrast, Shoma Morita created his own purpose-centered therapy in Japan.
Morita therapy focuses on teaching patients to accept their emotions without trying to control them, since their feelings will change as a result of their actions. This therapy seeks to “create” new emotions on the basis of actions - these emotions are learned through experience and repetition.
- Accept your feelings. If we try to control or get ride of obsessive thoughts, they become more intense, and we become more trapped in our own suffering. Welcome and observe them.
- Do what you should be doing. Recovery will come on its own when we focus on the present moment, learn from our actions and activities, and make discoveries through experience.
- Discover your life’s purpose by looking inside of yourself to find your ikigai and asking: “What do we need to be doing right now? What action should we be taking?”
Morita therapy’s original treatment lasts 15-21 days and includes isolation and rest, occupational therapy performing repetitive tasks in silence, physical movement tasks, followed by a return to social life.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” - Aristotle
FLOW
FLOW is the pleasure, delight, creativity, and process when we are completely immersed in what we are doing; completely immersed in life. It’s the state in which we are so involved in an activity and the experience is so enjoyable that nothing else seems to matter, we do it for the sheer sake of doing it. We’ve focused on a concrete task without any distractions.
7 Conditions for Achieving Flow:
- Knowing what to do
- Knowing how to do it
- Knowing how well you are doing
- Knowing where to go
- Perceiving significant challenges
- Perceiving significant skills
- Being free from distractions
Choose a difficult task, but not too difficult. Learn the rules, and add a little something extra to challenge yourself. Something too easy will cause boredom and something beyond your abilities will cause anxiety, but something we’re interested in that’s a little outside your comfort zone will create flow.
Have a clear, concrete objective - communicate the mission.
It’s more important to have a compass pointing to a destination than to have a map.
You’ll finish faster and more efficiently.
Ask yourself what you hope to achieve. Once you have a clear objective, leave it behind when you get down to business.
Don’t obsess over it, just take the first small step.
“A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell on the future.” - Albert Einstein
An objective that’s too vague will cause confusion and wasted energy on meaningless tasks, and a mental block.
An obsessive desire to achieve a goal while ignoring process will cause fixation, and also a mental block.
A clearly defined objective and a focus on process will create flow.
Concentrating on one thing at a time may be the single most important factor in achieving flow.
In order to focus on a task we need to be in a distraction-free environment and to have control over what we are doing at every moment.
Multitasking makes achieving flow impossible, and though it doesn’t seem to, decreases productivity by 60%. It makes it harder to remember things and more likely to make mistakes, and we feel stressed because we feel like we’re losing control.
Most importantly, multitasking reduces creativity.
Concentrating on a single task increases productivity and our power of retention, makes us less likely to make mistakes, helps us feel calm and in control, and we become more considerate as we pay full attention to those around us.
Most importantly, it makes us more likely to achieve flow and increases creativity (thereby getting in touch with our ikigai).
Flow gives us a focused mind, we live in the present free from worry, the hours fly by and we feel in control, we’re prepared, and know what we should be doing at any given moment, our mind is clear, it’s pleasant, and our ego fades.
“Ganbaru” : to persevere, to stay firm by doing one’s best
Sophisticated simplicity and attention to detail create new frontiers and take the object, song, body, and mind to the next level.
The key is to always having a meaningful challenge to overcome in order to maintain flow.
When you get down to work and become one with what you’re creating, the unity you reach in a state of flow has a “kami” - a spirit or god in it. It gives life.
Microflow is enjoying mundane tasks and trying to do them a little better each day to relax and clear your mind.
Our ability to turn routine tasks into moments of microflow is key to our being happy - we all have to do them.
Meditation gets us there faster - our brain is a little spa we all carry with us everywhere we go.
Rituals help - happiness is in the doing, not the result.
The happiest people are not the ones who achieve the most. They are the ones who spend more time than others in a state of flow.
Write down all of the activities in your life that make you enter flow and see what they have in common.
Ask yourself why those activities drive you to flow.
Try new things that aren’t on your list but that are similar and that you’re curious about.
You might find the underlying ikigai that drives your life.
Flow is mysterious. It’s like a muscle - the more you train it, the more you will flow, and the closer you’ll be to your ikigai and the true purpose of your life.
*Art, in all its forms, is an ikigai that can bring happiness and purpose to our days. Enjoying or creating beauty is free, and something all human beings have access to.
Supercentarian’s Secrets to a Long and Happy Life:
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Eat sushi and sleep. Learn how to relax.
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Dance. Go dancing with your friends once a week.
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Deny yourself almost nothing. Have a sense of humor. Everything’s fine.
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Keep your mind and body busy. Never be afraid to die.
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Never stop learning. Continue to see new things.
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Stay in your time. Don’t go backward. Stay curious about everything.
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Make things of beauty and utility for the community and yourself.
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Food won’t help you live longer. The secret is smiling and having a good time.
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Show respect for nature. Be blessed by nature.
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Celebrate each day, together.
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Pray for your family’s ancestors.
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The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
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The secret to a long life is not to worry. And to keep your heart young - don’t let it grow old. Open your heart to people with a nice smile on your face. If you smile and open your heart, your grandchildren and everyone else will want to see you.
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The best way to avoid anxiety is to go out in the street and say hello to people. Spend time with friends.
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Spending time together and having fun is the only thing that matters.
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Plant your own vegetables and cook them yourself.
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If you keep your fingers busy, you’ll live to see one hundred.
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Eat a bit of everything. It tastes better.
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Work. If you don’t work, your body breaks down.
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Exercise everyday and every morning go for a little walk.
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Talking each day with the people you love is the secret to a long life.
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Chat, drink tea, and sing together with your neighbors.
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Get together with people and go from place to place.
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Slow down. Relax. You live much longer if you’re not in a hurry.
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Do many different things every day. Always staying busy, but doing one thing at a time, without getting overwhelmed.
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Go to bed early, wake up early, and go for a walk. Live peacefully and enjoy the little things. Get along with your friends. Spring, summer, fall, winter… enjoy each season, happily.
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Every day say to yourself, “Today will be full of health and energy. Live it to the fullest.”
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Consider yourself young. You still have so much to do.
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Laugh. Laughter is the most important thing. Laugh wherever you go.
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Dance and sing with your grandchildren.
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Give thanks for having been born here every day.
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The most important thing in life is to keep smiling.
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Do volunteer work to give back.
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There’s no secret to it. The trick is just to live.
100% of these centenarians keep a vegetable garden. They recognize the connection between people and help each other with everything. They are always busy, but they occupy themselves with tasks that allow them to relax.
ANTI-FRAGILITY
“Fall seven times, rise eight.” - Japanese proverb
Resilience: our ability to deal. with setbacks
Resilient people stay focused on their objective and on what matters without giving in to discouragement. Their flexibility is the source of their strength, they know how to adapt to change. They concentrate on the things they can control and don’t worry about those they can’t.
Om mani padme hūm:
- om: the generosity that purifies the ego
- ma: the ethics that purifies jealousy
- ni: the patience that purifies passion and desire
- pad: the precision that purifies bias
- me: the surrender that purifies greed
- hūm: the wisdom that purifies hatred
“The only moment in which you can be truly alive is the present moment.” - Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh
Wabi-sabi: the beauty of the fleeting, changeable, and imperfect nature of the world around us
Ichi-go ichi-e: “this moment exists only now and won’t come again”
fragile: weakened when harmed
resilient: able to withstand harm without weakening
antifragile: gets stronger when harmed
*create redundancies: multiple jobs, friendships, and personal interests
*bet conservatively in certain areas and take many small risks in others
*get ride of the things that make you fragile
*don’t fear adversity - we need randomness, adventures, uncertainty, and self-discovery
ikigai
Once you discover your ikigai, pursuing it and nurturing it every day will bring meaning to your life.
The moment your life has this purpose, you will achieve a happy state of flow in all you do.
Our ikigai is different for all of us, but we’re all searching for meaning.
When we spend our time connecting to what is meaningful to us, we live more fully.
Your intuition and curiosity are your internal compasses.
Follow the things you enjoy and get away from the things you don’t.
Don’t worry too much about finding your ikigai. Just have something that keeps you busy doing what you love while being surrounded by the people who love you.
- Stay active, don’t retire, even after your “official” professional activity.
- Take it slow. “Walk slowly and you’ll go far.” Leave urgency behind.
- Don’t fill your stomach. Eat until you’re 80% full and stop.
- Surround yourself with good friends. They’re the best medicine.
- Move your body everyday to flow fresh like water.
- Smile :) a cheerful attitude is relaxing and helps make friends.
- Reconnect with nature often to recharge your batteries.
- Give thanks: ancestors, nature, friends, family, your life.
- Live in the moment. Today is all you have. Make it memorable.
- Follow your ikigai: your passion and talent that gives meaning to your days and drives you to share the best of yourself until the very end. If you don’t know what your ikigai is yet, your mission is to discover it.
Every moment in our life happens only once, and if we let it slip away, we lose it forever. Every one of us contains a key that can open the door to harmony with others and love of life. (ichi-go ichi-e)