The book called Ikigai

Lessons from Ikigai

What is Ikigai?

A reason to live. A reason for being (raison d’être). A reason to provide you with enough excitement to get out of bed every day. The happiness of always being healthy.

There’s an island called Okinawa in Japan where the worlds largest number of Centenarians (100+ Age) Exist. What's the reason for this prolonged age? Do you know anyone who has lived a century?

The island of Okinawa has a fruit eaten in abundance by its residents called Shikuwasa. Its a limelight fruit that packs an extraordinary antioxidant punch.

The people of Okinawa follow an animist religion. All objects, things and people possess an ancient spirit. These long-haired spirits are called bunagayas.

There are several core principles which Okinawa natives live by. First is Yuimaru, that simply means teamwork. Second is Ichoriba Chode, which translates to treating everyone as your brother, even if you’ve never met before.

Chapter 1: Ikigai

The Art of staying young while growing old.

Some Points

1. You must never retire.
2. 5 Blue zones (Places on the Earth with the longest living people) are Okinawa(Japan), Sardinia(Italy), Loma Linda(California), Nicoya Peninsula(Costa Rica) and Ikaria(Greece).
3. The 80% Secret. Fill your bellies up to 80% only. Stop eating once you start feeling full. Japanese serve small quantity / large variety of food on several plates per meal. Kind of makes you think that you are eating a lot of food but in reality, its little food spread over multiple plates.
4. Moai, meaning connected for life. A group of like-minded people who look for one another. The people maintain financial and emotional stability.

Chapter 2: Antiaging Secrets

Little things that add up to a healthy life.

Some Points

1. Ageing’s Escape velocity is adding an average of 1 year to life-expectancy each passing year.
2. Active mind, youthful body: Both Physical and Mental exercises are necessary.
3. Stepping out of your comfort zone: One must expose him/herself to changes. This presents the brain with new information which forces it to make new brain neuron connections and prevents depression due to solitude.
4. Stress is accused to kill longevity. As stress increases, the degenerative effect on cells is accelerated.
5. Hormones must be released in regularly large amounts only in the moments when they are required by the body. Only then, it is supposed to be healthy. Today, every mobile notification is similar to a threat and since humans are online all the time these days, this leads to a constant stream of hormones always persistent in the body. This is bad.
6. Be mindful about reducing stress. Stress leads to anxiety that is psychosomatic in fashion. Due to this being psychosomatic, everything from the digestive system to the skin is affected.
7. How to avoid stress? Being mindful of what's happening around. One way to do is meditate daily. Stress in low amounts is beneficial. Just like drinking is low amounts is.
8. Sedentary behaviour is not good for a long age. Supercentenarians (110+ age) embrace change and adopt an active lifestyle. Inactivity is not good for the human life cycle.
9. One must sleep more. It results in better, glowing skin. Sleep produced melatonin and offers a better immune system and reduces the risk of heart diseases.
10. Positive Attitude + Emotional Awareness = Stoic Behaviour (Can handle hardships without complaining or showing feelings)

Chapter 3: From Logotherapy to Ikigai

How to live longer and better by finding your Ikigai?

Some Points

1. What does lego therapy do? It helps you find reasons to live. Overcoming the past and find the motivation to pursue a future in the direction of destiny.
2. Existential Frustration: No purpose of life or purpose is screwed.
3. Man’s search for meaning: He, who has a why to live for can bear with any how.
4. Health depends on the tension between what has been achieved and what is to be achieved.
5. Sunday Neurosis: After a workweek, a person feels empty about what to do on a Sunday?
6. Naikan Meditations: Stop identifying others as the cause of your problems.

Some Key Ideas

1. Meaning of life is not created, its discovered.
2. Each person has a unique reason for being.
3. Hyper-intention (desire) must be avoided.
4. Humour cuts anxiety.
5. Your decisions impact your life.

Morita Therapy (by Shoma Morita, Zen Buddhist)

1. Its a purpose centred therapy.
2. Involved acceptance of emotions.
3. Actions lead to emotions. (In western cultures, emotions lead to actions)
4. Consider a donkey tied to the pole. In order to get away, the donkey would move around the pole and by doing so, it will get more trapped as the rope wraps around the pole. Similarly, in order to avoid fear and discomfort, a human will be more trapped.
5. Morita therapy asks you to accept your feelings, do what you should be doing and discover your life’s purpose.

Phases in Morita Therapy (15–21 days)

1. Isolation and Rest (5–7 days). No physical objects or interactions. Just thoughts. No stimuli.
2. Light Occupational therapy (5–7 days). No talking, only repetitive tasks in silence. Keeping a diary to write about feelings/emotions.
3. Occupational therapy (5–7 days). Physical movement, limited talking.
4. Return back to social life.

Chapter 4: Find Flow in whatever you do

How to turn work and free time into spaces for growth?

Going with the flow

1. Be fully immersed in the present.
2. Bruce Lee said- Be water, my friend.
3. Sense of time is lost when we are fully engaged in our favorite activity.

The Power of Flow

1. Measure + Delight + Creativity + Process = Flow
2. To achieve Ikigai, the flow is necessary
3. Flow is achieved via optimal experience (don’t do activities which give immediate pleasure or short-lived pleasure)

How to achieve flow and avoid distractions?

1. Knowing what to do?
2. How to do it?
3. How well you are doing it?
4. Where to go (Navigation)?
5. Perceiving significant challenges.
6. Perceiving significant skills.
7. Going fee from distractions. Ignore them.

Imp. Strategy 1

Choose a difficult task to perform but not that difficult otherwise you might end up not doing it at all. It must just fall outside your comfort zone.

Easy → Boredom

Challenging → Flow

Beyond Abilities → Anxiety

Imp. Strategy 2

Objective must be clear and concrete. JOI ITO says → ‘Compass over Maps’

Vague Objective → Confusion, Time & Energy wasted, A mental block.

Clear Objective → Flow

Obsessive Desire → Fixation on the Objective rather than the process

Imp. Strategy 3

Concentrate on a single task at hand. Humans can’t multitask.

Be in a distraction free environment.

To have control over what we are doing at each moment.

Epidemic of multitasking must be avoided at all times.

Technological Fasting will make you avoid all internet distractions.

Pomodoro technique (50 Min work, 10 Min rest)

Fact → Steve Jobs was inspired by Japanese Artisans (Takumi) specializing in Porcelain making.

A Flow can be subdivided into Micro-Flows. And these micro-flows make the mundane tasks enjoyable.

Chapter 5: Masters of Longevity

Words of wisdom from longest living people of the world.

To sum it all up → Ikigai must keep you running until the day you die. Eat healthy & in-control, drink in controlled proportions and stay motivated while in isolation.

Chapter 6: Lessons from Japan’s Centenarians

Traditions and proverbs for happiness & longevity

Shinto → Path of the Gods

Mabui → Essence or spirit of a person (Immortal in nature)

Keys to Ogimi lifestyle

1. Keep a hobby (Like gardening…)
2. Sort of close association with people.
3. Celebrate moments
4. Have some Ikigai and don’t be much serious about it.
5. Be proud of your culture.

Chapter 7: The Ikigai diet

What the world’s longest living people eat and drink.

Some points

1. Eat variety of foods, especially veggies.
2. At least 5 serving of food each day (fruits and veggies)
3. Eat grains, esp. rice.
4. Eat sugar rarely.
5. Fish or Pork 2–3 times a week.
6. Less calorie intake (~1700)

Hara Hachi Bu (80% rule)

1. Stop eating when you think that you are 80% full.
2. Trick → More Variety, Less Content
3. Fast 2 days a week (500 calories or less)

Sampin-Cha → Green Tea + Jasmine Leaves / White tea

Shikuwasa → Fruits (have antioxidants)

Chapter 8: Gentle movements, longer life

Exercises from the west which promote health and longevity

You must keep moving, do some sort of activity or the fat accumulates. Must not sit for long times but must move often, even in subtle movements.

Yoga → Comes from Yoke

Qi → Life Force, Energy

Chapter 9: Resilience and Wabi-Sabi

How to face life’s challenges without letting and worry age you

You must maintain resilience.

Siddhartha Gautama → Born as a prince in nepal, left his comfortable life to live as an ascetic.

Life Full of Pleasures …… Sweet Spot……Asceticism

Sweet spot is where a person experiences the pleasures of life but is not enslaved by them.

A person must never be insatiable and must always maintain tranquility.

Negative Visualization → Imagine the worst that could happen.

Always focus on the present.

Wabi-Sabi → Changeable World and Circumstances.

Ichi-go-Ichi-e → This moment only exists now and won’t come again.

Western Architecture is fixated around the concepts of symmetry, perfection, sharp-edges, facades; etc.

Japanese Architecture maintains wabi-sabi. Fleeting state of architecture, changing nature.

Be Anti-fragile, Stronger with each harm.

Some important steps

Step 1 → Instead of a single salary, try to make money from your hobbies. Give time to all the people in your life not just your partner.

Step 2 → Bet conservatively in certain areas and take many small risks in others.

Step 3 → Get rid of the things that make you fragile.

Summary

1. Stay Active; Don’t Retire.
2. Take it slow.
3. Don’t fill your stomach too much.
4. Surround yourself with good friends.
5. Get in shape for your next birthday, keep moving.
6. Smile, be happy.
7. Reconnect with nature.
8. Be thankful.
9. Live in the moment. Fully Immersed.

Find your Ikigai!