In this video, Nathania Rochelle shares her approach to ikigai as she compares it to behavioral activation in her paper. She believes ikigai is what makes life worth living, but it’s not just about finding any random meaning. Instead, ikigai involves living a life that's deeply aligned with your values.
A life that you can live out your values
Nick: So with all the insights and all the reading you did, Nathania, how would you define ikigai? Or how did you define ikigai in the paper?
Nathania: I think the paper provides a systematic comparison, so I try my best to kind of like stick to the original idea as close as I could possibly get with all of the things that have been published or like people that has defined how ikigai is, so to say.
But I think if taking it also into context with behavioral activation, I do agree that ikigai is something that makes your life worth living, but I think like it can also how Jurgen and you obviously already touched on it, like be value-based.
So I think it is making life worth living, but it's not just randomly trying to make your life worth living, but also like living your life according to your values. I think I would take it one step further to say the life that’s worth living for is the life that you can live out your values.
Nick: Yes. Ken, in his book, one of the first questions is, what are your sentimental values? And I always thought sentimental was like a really interesting word choice, maybe suggesting the inner child, or this untainted self because he didn't say core values or most important values.
So there's this emotional connection, perhaps Ken's touching onto your values. So, yeah, I think that's really important. And I guess sometimes I reflect and think, wow, there are millions of people living their lives against their values, and it's no wonder they're frustrated and depressed.
And in this modern world with so much pressure and so much distraction, and almost it seems that there are little opportunity to express our values. It seems quite hard for us to feel ikigai, or for many of us. So it's interesting how ikigai and behavioral activation have this foundation on values.