My Japanese friend said "My 生き甲斐 is travel". She was unfamiliar with the Venn diagram, for her she would directly translate it as "passion".<p>Turns out the Venn diagram relation is from a random 2014 blog post. He just found a Venn diagram online and replaced the word "purpose" with "ikigai":<p><a href="http://theviewinside.wpengine.com/meme-seeding/" rel="nofollow">http://theviewinside.wpengine.com/meme-seeding/</a>
>When we asked what their ikigai was, they gave us explicit answers, such as their friends, gardening, and art<p>Correct me if I'm wrong but almost no one is paid for friends, gardening or art. And the definition of ikigai is "something you can be paid for". So this concept of ikigai essentially does not exist.
Related. Others?<p><i>Ikigai: What We Got Wrong and How to Find Meaning in Life</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39777896">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39777896</a> - March 2024 (83 comments)<p><i>Photography and Ikigai</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31579522">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31579522</a> - June 2022 (10 comments)<p><i>Passion is self-centered crap. Find your Ikigai (2018)</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20486393">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20486393</a> - July 2019 (20 comments)<p><i>Ikigai and Mortality (2008)</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16248307">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16248307</a> - Jan 2018 (1 comment)
At the end, there's one of the craziest Venn diagrams I've seen in a while. The diagram asserts that --- by definition --- you aren't good at your "mission," the world does not need your "profession," you can't be paid for your "passion," and you can't love your "vocation." Grim!
Ikigai is a great branding for Japan. They’ve taken a word, declared it untranslatable and a unique component of Japanese culture.<p>Denmark has done the same with the word “Hygge” and you’ll find books named “hygge”, next to books named “ikigai” in self-help section of any airport bookstore.<p>I don’t think discussing ikigai is uninteresting, but there is a feedback loop. Japanese soft power benefits from ikigai being special, and books and articles about ikigai also benefits from it being unique and special. The more books you can sell on ikigai, the stronger Japans cultural influence becomes and as a result, the potential readership of ikigai book grows.
I absolutely hate this concept. It's trite life advice wrapped up in self-serving orientalism/ethnic exceptionalism.<p>It literally just boils down to "if you find life meaningless, just find some mundane thing and invest it with meaning for yourself", and somehow I'm supposed to be wowed by an aenemic, EILIF version of Nietzche. Literal "Place" vs "Place, Japan" meme.<p>Why do you think Japan has so much suicide? Because all anybody has to say to anybody is "ganbattene~". Some people run out of "ganbari"? "Ganbattene~~".
This is an interesting take on the concept of Ikigai - <a href="https://www.lkazphoto.com/blog/photography-and-ikigai" rel="nofollow">https://www.lkazphoto.com/blog/photography-and-ikigai</a>
I found this useful<p>The Problem with Ikigai
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeX6kNbaF0w" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeX6kNbaF0w</a><p>The TLDR I got from is that first - that the diagram itself was made up by someone trying to write a business blog/book.<p>The second is that the goal is not to find one singular activity to cover the intersection of the Ikigai Venn diagram. Instead it can be better to have multiple different activities which ensure the union of the Ikigai Venn diagram is covered so you aren't myopically focused on one area of it.
This is a meaningless diagram that CEOs roll out when they want to make the point that everyone should focus more on business.<p>It has the same value as the Gartner Magic Quadrant.
Is this term actually used widely through Japanese culture or are they just riding the popularity train? E.g. if I'm in a "planning your future career" class in a high school in Japan, is the concept of ikigai going to come up?
How to balance ikigai with society ? being averaged by groups and stuck in norms is probably the number one reason daily life is the opposite of ikigai.
have hobbies and goals and participate in community activities... I don't know how I feel about platitudes like this. On one hand, it is obviously true and doing this things will make you feel better... but at the same time I think most people already understand this and its not a matter of simply not knowing that this is a helpful thing to do.
Do you know why people in Okinawa and Sardinia have great longevity? Is it Ikigai, or living simple village life, or eating maggot infested cheese? No, it's because of lack of record keeping, specifically families keeping people "alive" to collect pensions:<p><a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/704080v3" rel="nofollow">https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/704080v3</a>
This article kind of feels like a "place, Japan" type of article not going to lie. "There is no other word like this in any other language." Passion? Purpose?
The Japanese word isekai refers to the desire to escape your miserable life and start from scratch in a new, better place /s<p>Jokes aside, I live in Japan, and I wouldn't take them as the example of a happy, balanced society. Given the explosion of popularity of isekai animes in recent years, quite the opposite.
Amazing to see this. I just landed after a week in Japan where we discovered this word and instantly recognised how it applies to our team. Made heavy use of it when pitching to explain our passion for what we do.