Welcome to the 116th episode of Giving Back Insights! Insights are our solo show to celebrate how our guests and their charities serve others, explore actions each of can take to make a difference in people’s lives and connect.

Today we’re talking about Ikigai (生き甲斐)! Enjoy today’s episode and keep your comments and feedback coming.

Key Takeaways:

I had a conversation with a remarkable young lady named Monisha Bajaj who is committed to sparking conversations about healthy relationships in Thailand.  We touched on what our guests share, besides the experience of serving their community. Spiritual philosophy, life philosophy, perspective on the world and people in it.

I told Monisha that sometimes I feel like people miss the best part of the show, where guests dive deeper because there’s great knowledge they’re sharing.  Finding purpose and meaning by making a difference in people’s lives. We’re wired to connect and engage, and by lifting others we lift ourselves.

In fact, we’ve been wrestling about the meaning of life AND self-actualization since we’ve had the luxury of writing and developing arts and culture.  Well before Rumi and Tony Robbins and Pico Della Mirandola. Before the Bible and the Torah and the Koran. Before I knew it, I’m talking with this USC grad halfway around the world about Ikigai.

Ikigai (生き甲斐, pronounced [ikiɡai]) is a Japanese concept that means "a reason for being." The word "ikigai" is usually used to indicate the source of value in one's life or the things that make one's life worthwhile. The word translated to English roughly means "thing that you live for" or "the reason for which you wake up in the morning." Each individual's ikigai is personal to them and specific to their lives, values and beliefs. It reflects the inner self of an individual and expresses that faithfully, while simultaneously creating a mental state in which the individual feels at ease. Activities that allow one to feel ikigai are never forced on an individual; they are often spontaneous, and always undertaken willingly, giving individual satisfaction and a sense of meaning to life.

The Ikigai diagram for today’s cover illustrates where we operate.  The four areas of what we love to do, what we’re good at, what we get paid to do, and what the world needs, and the sense of being when 3 out of 4 overlaps, plus Ikigai right in the middle.  I think the important thing to remember is that it’s not always easy. We have 24 hours in a day, 1,440 minutes. We have to CHOOSE to live our lives in pursuit of Ikigai, or purpose, or significance, or awesomeness, or whatever you call it, in order to make progress towards that goal.

It won’t always be one life.  Monisha works full time and her passion is to create a full-time job preventing sexual violence.  Nothing wrong with a job that puts food on the table and filling your life with service to others.  It’s where you start, and how you move forward that counts.

John P. Weiss draws cartoons, paints landscapes, and writes about life.  He wrote an article in Medium.com called “How to Radically Improve Your Life with just three words” and talks about choices, including the courage to change.  One person’s advice that helped put him on the right path for him was “Try things until something comes easily” That falls in line with things you’re good at and things you love, or what I call things in your wheelhouse.  The perspective John adds is this: “Do hard things.”

See, it’s not enough to just slide in.  There will always be an inherent tension to keep moving forward to even stay in Ikigai, that sense of value.  Trying new things, moving out of old things even if they’re working, learning, growing, applying new knowledge, overcoming obstacles.  If I have a perspective to add to Ikigai, I would say that it’s not a goal. Ikigai is a pursuit.

Remember: Always err on the side of love & kindness

Love & Gratitude,

Rob

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