WELL-BEING
Make 2018 the year you find a purpose in your life – Japanese style, says Colin Drury
The Land of the Rising Sun knows what it takes to be happy and healthy. They call it Ikigai.
Perhaps, on reflection, it was never a concept that would quite work in the Middle East. The Danish philosophy of ‘hygge’ – finding contentment through cosiness – became popular all over the world last year. Its central idea – that true happiness is attained through simple, affordable pleasures such as kinship, comfort food and candle light – has become a phenomenon in western Europe and the US particularly.
Yet, perhaps unsurprisingly for an idea which is symbolised by knitted sweaters, log fires and snug rugs, it hasn’t gained traction with everyone here in Arabia.
‘The philosophy behind hygge makes a lot of sense but the whole imagery just doesn’t really fit with the culture or climate of this part of the world,’ says Ghada Zakaria, a Dubai-based executive leadership and personal development coach. ‘Seeking cosiness just isn’t that relevant in a country where you shut the windows to stop the heat getting in.’
Instead, it seems while much of the world has been looking to Scandinavia for advice on achieving happiness in the 21st century, thought leaders and life coaches in the UAE have been turning their eyes in a different direction – and era – completely.
Namely: To ancient Japan. And to the obscure, age-old idea of ikigai.
What’s that? Good question: you’ll be hearing it a lot in 2018. But, for now, in simple terms, it’s a Far Eastern approach to the world that claims to improve your health, wealth and happiness, fill your days with excitement, and help you live longer. Indeed, the island of Okinawa, where the theory originates, has the planet’s oldest life expectancy with women there reaching, on average, the ripe age of 90. (The island also inspired Dan Buettner’s explorations of longevity and happiness in the latest Blue Zones book.)
‘Ikigai is all about finding a purpose – your purpose – in life,’ says Hector Garcia, the Spanish-born, Tokyo-based co-author behind the best-selling 2017 book, Ikigai The Japanese Secret To A Long And Happy Life. ‘And, then, using that purpose to reconnect with what it means to be human and to be fulfilled.’
Which perhaps raises two more questions. How do you go about getting yourself some ikigai? And can it really help us find contentment in the 21st century UAE?
Around 2012, Hector found himself struggling to get up each morning.
Part of this was down to suffering with small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, a chronic illness that causes nausea, fatigue and weight loss. But he realised his lack of energy and enthusiasm was also because, despite a high-achieving tech career, he was feeling professionally lost.
‘I’d worked at CERN [the European Organization for Nuclear Research] in Switzerland and then at Twitter in Japan and, from the outside, I suppose it probably looked like I was relatively successful,’ the 36-year-old explains today. ‘But it didn’t excite me any longer. It didn’t offer any kind of meaning to my world, and neither really did any of my hobbies. I woke up every day without feeling any anticipation for what lay ahead. I was going through the motions. So, what was the point?’
After wrestling with that all-too-common question, he started considering something he had occasionally read about during his decade of living in the east: Ikigai.
Pronounced ik-ee-guy, this is a concept which, in many ways, is the antithesis of hygge. Instead of putting the emphasis on slowing down, it encourages us to strive to find a purpose and mission in everyday life; a raison d’etre; a thing which makes us want to leap out of bed every morning and attack the day. In Okinawa – that island where people live longer than anywhere else on the planet – many residents put their longevity down to having this very thing.
‘You’ll get 80 and 90-year-olds saying they can’t get unwell because they still have things they want to achieve,’ says Hector. ‘Of course, they slow down but every day is still filled with meaning.’
Although there is no literal translation for ikigai, iki means life and gai is the result of an action.
‘So ikigai is like your life action,’ says Hector. ‘It’s your life value. And once you’ve found that – that personal purpose – the sensation is generally one of feeling like you’re exactly where you should be in the world. You fit and you belong and you are of use. And it’s that which brings a real inner calm and contentment.’
In traditional but limited western interpretations, this personal purpose tends to be illustrated with a Venn diagram (left) featuring four qualities: what you love, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. Where all four overlap, that is your ikigai, and that is what you should aim to spend your time doing.
For everyone, it will be different of course. For some people, it might be a high-flying career in finance that ticks all the boxes; for others, it might be travelling the world. Some might simply feel their ikigai is spending as much time as possible with family.
But as Hector and co-author Francesc Miralles, also Spanish, spent a year studying the concept, they discovered that inherent in the concept are other simultaneous guidelines, hints and tips for fulfilment.
‘We visited Okinawa to interview people about their views on ikigai and how they thought people in other parts of the world could apply it to their own lives,’ explains Hector. ‘And from that, we came up with about 60 common pieces of advice, which we then simplified and condensed into our own 10 rules.
‘But what really stood out for me is that none of this advice is especially revolutionary. I think most of us know it intuitively anyway. It
In Japanese culture, retiring and not keeping your mind and body busy is viewed as being bad for your health
feels right. But by understanding ikigai, it helps remind us of these values and keeps them at the front of our mind. It focuses us to make time to be content.’
Among those 10 rules (listed overleaf) is to adopt a slower pace of life, reconnect with nature, be present in the moment, only eat until you’re 80 per cent full and, perhaps rather unusually, don’t ever retire.
‘Not retiring is the one westerners often find strange,’ says Hector. ‘It sounds counter-intuitive because so many of us like the idea of never having to go to work again. But in Japanese culture, retiring and not keeping your mind and body busy is viewed as being bad for your health because it disconnects you from your meaning.
‘So, here, workers will often move positions in their company as they get older. Perhaps they will take on advisory roles where there is less responsibility but where their wealth of experience becomes invaluable. Or sometimes they will change careers completely and take
up something less physically demanding. But, generally, people stay in some kind of work. They understand that keeping active, mentally and physically, is key to staying fulfilled. Because studies have repeatedly shown the moment you lose that purpose is the moment both your health and mind start to go into decline.’
Here in the UAE, Cindy van de Kreke-Freens agrees – and she is worth listening to.
As one of Dubai’s most respected personal and professional development coaches – with more than a decade’s experience in the Middle East – she’s seen a fair few trends come and go. But she feels applying ikigai to our everyday lives could really help those of us who, despite being thankful for all we have, still sometimes struggle to feel contentment in the fast pace of big modern city life.
‘It’s my belief that, when people want to change, they need a structure – and that’s what philosophies like this can provide,’ says Cindy who works at Valiant Clinic in City Walk, Dubai. ‘For me, an abundant and happy life is about the P’s: passion, purpose, positive perspectives, perseverance, pausing to live in the moment, presence and finding your position. Ikigai offer a structured way of achieving all these things while maintaining the framework of the life we already have. It is a map, if you like, to how we can become our best selves.’
She is not the only advocate either. Ghada, who was the first Emirati woman to qualify as a life coach in the UAE, says that, while hygge struggled to make an impact, ikigai is more universally applicable. ‘There are a lot of valuable lessons you can learn from hygge but it doesn’t pertain to the terrain of the Middle East,’ she opines. ‘With ikigai, it has a clarity of message that gives it a greater relevance. When it is explained to
people, they get it. It feels like common sense but it also feels like it can make a difference.’
She reckons the idea of having a purpose and mission especially resonates in the Middle East. ‘I think people here, whether Arabs or expats from other parts of the world, are generally happiest when they are in service in some way,’ she says. ‘I think that’s already in the mindset here.’
And she fundamentally agrees that reducing retirement will keep people happier and
healthier longer. ‘If you say to someone that, at this age, you are no longer any good, you are giving them an expiry date. You are saying, after this point, you have no use but to wait for death. I think, of course, this will be detrimental to people’s health and happiness. Why shouldn’t we work as long as we enjoy it and are useful?’
It is a question many of us may well be considering as ikigai becomes increasingly popular in 2018. Just remember, of course, you read about it here first.