My take on IKIGAI..!!

 

                                        My Humble Pranams to All...!!  Here I am back with another post on one of my recent favorite read, IKIGAI and I just loved the fact that this book provides more profound insights of living life and it encourages a deep reflection on what truly matters in life. This book has enriched my life so I wanted to pen down on this immediately and share my deep thoughts on the same..... With so many opportunities that life has to offer and with all these different jobs and careers, its often difficult to decide what we want to do with our lives and mostly we tend to decide our life at very younger age as in what path we are going to go and what we want to do, when we are grown up. But, here is a question, " What is the purpose of our lives ?" Do the things we tend to do in our lives really align with our purpose ? Japanese invented a philosophy named Ikigai, which means reason for being. Ikigai helps us to determine what it is that we want to wake up for in the morning?  When we tend to totally immerse ourselves into activities, nothing else matters and we tend to be in a state of flow. Ikigai helps to identify the ingredients that helps to get to this flow state and make our pursuit sustainable and useful for the world.
                                        Ikigai is our reason for living. It teaches us to have a long and a happy life. One of the reasons to why, Japanese is said to have much above than average life expectancy as people in those Okinawa islands know what they love to do and they engage in it for a lifetime and this helps them to do things with greater satisfaction and greater care and productivity. To find purpose in life, we need to have greater self awareness and a honest conversation with oneself and to find real reason for living here are five simple steps 1) Lets start small : Choose one area of life which we think needs more attention and try improving it and slowly build across a way, a reason for a longer life planning 2) Free oneself: We need to break from any preconceived ideas that might not be aligned with what we really want from life and to carefully reflect on what we want from our lives. 3) Seek Harmony and Sustainability : We need to then question if the activity we chose help us to make a living from it ? If we try to find something where we are able to really find a purpose and if that purpose is also what the world needs from us, and if that also helps us to be happier and productive and from it we can earn and make money for our living, then we have found our ikigai. 4) Have joy in little things: One mistake what people make is to set up grand projects and condition to fulfil those projects some of it could be an arduous task but only if we choose to have moments of joy in between these endless goals we can be smart enough to live a life. Also we must learn to be happier with every little mistake that we make, as our lives have so many ordinary moments than great moments. 5) Learning to be in present : Failing to live in present moment always opens the door to sufferings as we tend to have untimely desires or feeling to anticipate or getting reminded of things from the past without really enjoying the present moment. In short, if  there is "no wanting" or "not wanting" and then we would be in fullness in life. 
                                             Lets all imagine having a moment that we had a great motivation getting out of bed and we have found a true purpose and we can make a living out of it., what a great life  would we have lived ??  

                                                                                                                       -Sowmya Raghavan