By Luke McKenna

Ikigai is a Japanese word which translates roughly to a reason for being, encompassing joy, a sense of purpose and meaning and a feeling of wellbeing. Its two parts – iki, meaning life and kai, meaning the realisation of hopes and expectations (Better Humans 2017) but it also has the nuance of "the reason for which you wake up in the morning" (The Ascent 2018). Each individual's ikigai is personal to them and specific to their lives, values and beliefs. Activities that allow one to feel ikigai are never forced on an individual; they are often spontaneous and always undertaken willingly, giving the individual satisfaction and a sense of meaning to life (Nakanishi 1999).

Ikigai involves asking four key questions and identifying what responses may lie close to the centre of the diagram for a particular person.

What do you love?
What are you good at?
What can you be paid for?
What does the world need?

(Find your Ikigai. BODETREE, ADAPTED FROM FRANCESC MIRALLES)

Howard Thurman famously said “don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” In light of ikigai, it might be appropriate to ask both of those questions and find where our answers intersect.

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