Since life is sometimes rather complicated and frustrating, we spend our time looking for the perfect balance between work and leisure, between what we must do and what we should do.
It’s a struggle and Elle Luna describes it very well in her inspired essay and journey !
But, may be we are wrong from the beginning and it’s not just an equilibrium with two forces, this might be a bit too simple.
For a long time, I have been fascinated by Japan culture and their relation to the world. It seems to me to be a deeper and more meaning full relation than our.
I recently found on Twitter a fascinating chart shared by Emmy van Deurzen referring to a Japanese concept called IKIGAI that I didn’t know at all.
In Japan, Ikigai is a term to express well-being, purpose and meaning, with connotations of joy about being alive.
It has no direct translation, « Iki » means life and « gai » basically means achieving what we hope, the term is generally translated as « purpose ».Like often Japanese concept are far more complex than the one we usually deal with. We just don’t have one word to translate this and we need at least 4 or 5 words to express it.
Everyone, according to Japanese, has an Ikigai. To discover it requires a deep and long research.Such quest is considered as very important, since it is estimated that the discovery of our personal Ikigai brings joy and meaning to our lives.
Kobayashi Tsukasa a psychiatrist says that « people can feel real Ikigai only when, on the basis of personal maturity, the satisfaction of various desires, love and happiness, encounters with others, and a sense of the value of life, they proceed toward self-realization »
I feel confident with such a complex diagram even if I know that is not really easy to reconcile all these data … I see this as a holistic way to embrace life in all its complexity.
So let just fill this Ikigai pattern and we’ll see !
