Ikigai (生き甲斐) translated to English roughly means “thing that you live for”.

Ikigai is thought to have originated in Okinawa, where the term is most closely associated with “the reason you get up in the morning”.

The author and explorer Dan Buettner took us on a journey to lands of longevity, which he called Blue Zones, in his TED Talk, How to live to be 100+. Okinawa was one of those lands and Buettner suggested the Ikigai philosophy was one of the reasons people in the area have such long lives.

Health Ministry data from 2001 showed 400 centenarians living in Okinawa, or 34 for every 100,000 people. The equivalent figure for the United States at the time was about 10 in 100,000. 

The word ikigai refers to two things according to Noriyuki Nakanishi of Osaka University Medical School:

1. The source of value in one’s life or the things that make one’s life worthwhile.
2. The mental and spiritual circumstances under which individuals feel that their lives are valuable.

According to Nakanishi’s paper, it’s not linked to one’s financial status.

You can feel ikigai even if your present is clouded in dark, as long as you can hold on to that thing that you live for.

The feelings associated with ikigai include a sense of fulfilment in everyday life, self-realisation, the motivation to live and a sense of existence and control.

Do you find inspiration from this approach to life? 

Is this a means to achieve balance in one's life?

How could this concept be linked to the concept of nature?

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