In this video, Nick Kemp dives deep into the heart of ikigai—exploring why who is your ikigai may matter more than what. He reflects on how relationships and meaningful connections often bring the most fulfillment, contrasting this with the endless pursuit of external success, wealth, and status that many of us are encouraged to chase.
Focus on what truly matters
Nick: That's why in some part why I tried to place a strong emphasis on who is your ikigai, rather than what to sort of suggest, it is people and relationships that ultimately matter most. And there might be some exceptions.
A good one actually was my father, I think he preferred not having, as bizarre as this will sound, no friends, and that he was quite satisfied with one significant other, his wife, or second wife, so my parents divorced, too. And so I think that's something we're missing; now, we're focused on external or extrinsic success, or we're trying to find this answer to a very important question, and external or extrinsic things, success, money, wealth, appearance.
And we all know, they're very limiting and giving us a sense of satisfaction yet, but continuing to pursue them, and we're kind of encouraged to. And when we talk about community, people aren't involved in community anymore, like very few, and if they are, it's limited to, perhaps, only things they care about, which is good, but also, it probably doesn't give you opportunity, or exposure for you to grow to different opinions, different cultures, different ways of thinking.
I mean, it's the reason in my book, why I introduced all these other words like asobigai, which Japanese don't really use, but what things are worth playing, or what plays are worth engaging in? Manabigai, learning, and we all have this opportunity to teach, oshiegai. So I think you find it, as Ken kind of said it, in doing things that are meaningful tied to a social context, rather than if I could earn half million a year, my life would be perfect, I'd have enough money to do everything and buy everything.
And then you're focused on that challenge of trying to earn a certain income thinking it's going to give you this lifestyle, when you could probably have the lifestyle you want now, if you just were proactive and focused on people, and maybe doing a bit of Naikan as well.