Who brings meaning to your life?
Ikigai, the Japanese concept of purpose and fulfilment, isn't just about achieving great goals or finding joy in activities; it also thrives in the meaningful relationships we cultivate.
In this episode of the Ikigai Podcast, Nick Kemp delves into how our relationships can be a profound source of ikigai.
Podcast highlights:
Who matters most to you? Nick explains how our relationships can also serve as a source of ikigai.
How our relationships can bring ikigai. Nick talks about how our relationships can help make us feel that life is worth living.
Other people matter. Nick talks about the importance of reaching out to people we care about.
The importance of values. Nick discusses the importance of being aligned with our values when building relationships with people.
What is the authentic self. Nick delves into the concept of authenticity and its importance in relationships.
Embracing your inner child. Nick discusses why it is essential to return to a child-like state to cultivate more meaningful relationships.
Who matters most to you
What matters most to you – or, to rephrase the question slightly, who matters most to you?
While our work, hobbies, goals and personal dreams can be life-affirming sources of ikigai, it may be the people in your life who matter most to you – family, friends, colleagues, mentors – that are your strongest source of ikigai. As a result, it is these relationships that may cause you to experience ikigai-kan most intensely.
‘Young people often say that they have nothing to live for. But that is natural. Isolated people have no reason to live. What makes life worth living is human relationships. Human beings were not created to live alone. Buried in the fabric of human relationships, the warmth of human skin gives us a reason to live.’4
Written well before the age of social media, author Tatsuzō Ishikawa’s 1971 quote couldn’t be more relevant for today. People tend to think that they are complete with their ‘self,’ but they are complete only when they are in relationships with other people. He believed that indirect relationships that we seek to pursue in isolation cannot fulfil us; ikigai can only come from something much more personal.
So we may be asking the wrong question with “What is your ikigai? Perhaps we should be asking “Who is your ikigai?”
How our relationships can bring us ikigai
Relationships and connections with others can make you feel that life is worth living by generating feelings of intimacy – not necessarily physical intimacy (though that is possible), but other types such as emotional, intellectual, experiential, creative, and spiritual. These can lead to intense feelings of ikigai-kan because they make you feel alive, cause you to lose yourselves in a moment of connection, and provide you with life satisfaction, a sense of purpose, and a desire to keep making the most of life.
Other people matter
So it is often the who in our lives that make life worth living. To steal the words of Chris Peterson, one of the founding fathers of positive psychology, other people matter. In fact, Peterson would often begin his lectures and workshops.
“I can sum up positive psychology in just three words – Other People Matter. Period. Anything that builds relationships between and among people is going to make you happy.”
It is a mantra to live by and could be used as a reminder for us to reach out to someone we care about every day. For in the grand scheme of life, our grandparents and parents will pass on, our children will grow up, life will steal time away from friendships, our most precious life moments, the ones we share with others, will happen only once. Your ikigai could be to make other people matter.
However we know that some relationships can be complicated. And while some people and the relationships you have with them can be sources of ikigai, we have all probably experienced relationships that are taxing, where the people involved drain us of ikigai.
This is particularly difficult when relationships turn sour, in which you discover that someone holds ulterior motives in your relationship and seeks to manipulate you for their own benefit. Managing these situations can be difficult because it challenges your authenticity and puts you in an uncomfortable situation where you have to make a decision to either compromise your values or act on them and end the relationship. That decision usually comes down to values.
The importance of values
Values are the foundation from which you can identify your ikigai sources. And you will feel a strong sense of ikigai if you live in harmony with your values – not those that you have inherited from or been pressured to accept by family, friends, institutions, or society, but those that you have identified for yourself.
If you live in conflict or are forced to compromise your values, then ikigai will remain elusive for you. This means it is important for you to engage in actions that express your values as often as you can. The more you do this, the more ikigai you will feel.
There is a consensus on this amongst all the Japanese authors and researchers I've spoken to or read on the subject of ikigai. As described in the previous chapter, for example, Mieko Kamiya states that ikigai-kan is strongly linked to one's personal values.
What is the authentic self?
This question could lead me down a very long rabbit hole. As such, I would like to offer a Japanese perspective on the self, with the phrase 自分らしい, jibunrashii, which translates to ‘like oneself’ or ‘worthy of oneself’. 自分, jibun, means ‘myself; yourself and oneself’ and らしい, rashi, means ‘-ish; like, typical of ...; appropriate for ...; becoming of’. Breaking down the word further, 分, bun, means ‘part, portion or share’. We could understand 自分 jibun as your part, your self part.
This indicates that your self is a part of something bigger: society. Japanese understand that their identity is derived from being a part of a whole, and that they belong to various groups in which they are interdependent with others; as such, their interpersonal relationships allow them to feel that they have a proper place in society. In Japan, self-authenticity goes beyond the individual; Japanese know that one cannot be authentic without the help of others, or without being of service to others.
In the West, we often perceive the authentic self as something that we feel only we control, but as we all know, life isn’t easy and can throw challenges at us that put us under stress, often removing us from ourselves and causing us to act out in ways that contradict our values and the self we aspire to be.
This suggests that we aren’t always in control of the self. If we take the Japanese perspective – that the self is not independent but a part of a collective; a part of something bigger, a family, a society – we understand that our sense of self is defined and perhaps to some degree determined by others.
Our authentic self is tied to the lives and influence of others in our roles, the parts we play as members of various social groups. Our roles are the hats we consciously or unconsciously put on to adapt our behaviours to meet the expectations and needs of others.
Embracing your inner child
As with all things in life, it is important to find an equilibrium. Ken Mogi warns against inadvertently closing yourself off to other possibilities by devoting yourself single-mindedly to particular social roles; further, he encourages people to occasionally unshackle themselves from social obligations and take the time to embrace their inner child, finding ikigai by feeling creative and free:
‘When you were a child, there were infinite possibilities. Your existence was not really defined by any social roles or status. I think being a child is a really important technique to remain creative and free and for learning and so on.’6
Being a child, or being child-like, is also a wonderful reminder that other people matter. When we were children before losing our innocence other people mattered to us. Our friends were our ikigai and race, gender, wealth status and so on were things that did not concern ourselves with. Relationships were purely intrinsic where we could be authentic and free. Can you return to that child-like state? I think you can if you identify family and friends as your ikigai.
