In this video, Nick Kemp explores the three levels of Ikigai—from personal fulfillment and self-acceptance to creating deeper connections with others and contributing to the community.
Identifying three levels of ikigai
Nick: What's really interesting about this, and this actually happened to me in the last couple of days, I interviewed someone today about ikigai, and in her paper, she cited something written by Gordon Mathews; he identified that you have three levels of ikigai: personal, interpersonal, and community.
And yeah, first person: personal, second person: interpersonal, and third person: communities, how we kind of defined it. And then a few days ago, basically on the same day, I think, when I was preparing our podcast, I looked at your LinkedIn profile; you said, basically, you learnt the importance of connection citing with one's family, and I think we could also include friends with that, because some friends are like family, one's community and with oneself.
And I was like, wow, that is literally exactly the same things. And I never really picked up on these three levels of ikigai until fairly recently. I mean, perhaps intuitively, but you obviously, from your life experience, and traveling and recognizing that life is hard sometimes when you leave home, and this idea of self-acceptance, you've identified these three levels of ikigai.
And that was like, wow, this is quite serendipitous for the podcast. And so I've never gone into that. Oh, yeah, kind of personal ikigai. I think I've always described interpersonal ikigai as this intimacy; you can have this intellectual, emotional, creative--all these types of intimacy. And then of course, community gives that opportunity for contribution, sense of significance.
But I think the personal really matters, because sometimes if we're struggling with life or just getting through a day, as Ken Mogi often says, you have all these sources of ikigai, whether it's your cup of coffee, or listening to your favorite music, or doing some exercise. But I think I'll be highlighting these three levels of ikigai now more often.