Sadiq GulmaIn the therapy school founded by Dr Victor Frankl, the therapy individuals receive is one that only helps them find meaning to their lives. What is logotherapy. If you have a meaning, then you can always do anything or endure anything, the Nazi Holocaust survivor preaches.
Logotherapy is a school of psychotherapy that places the search for one’s life’s meaning as the core motivation of human life. Dr Frankl came up with it after observing a hundred Nazi Concentration Camp prisoners in Auschwitz either lose themselves or live like a golden survival medal awaits them if they make it out of the camp alive.
Frankl, a psychiatrist and neurologist, wrote this in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, that has sold over 10 million copies and translated into 24 different languages. He talks about existential frustration which arises when our life is without purpose or when that purpose is skewed. It is not something to run away from. But to embrace as a positive thing and a catalyst for change.
However, existential crisis is what is negative. When people do what they are told to do, or what others do, rather than what they want to do. This is bad and leads to Sunday neurosis. The idea that without the obligations and commitments of the work week, we realise how empty we are inside and that one must find a solution. His ikigai. His purpose.
I have come to know about this mysterious term ikigai, a long time ago. It is a Japanese word that roughly translates to the happiness of always being busy, the authors of “Ikigai, The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life” Hector Garcia and F. Miralles wrote. But generally, it refers to your purpose in life. Something you live for. Something that makes you get up in the morning. Something that keeps your mind and body active, and you keep on working and speaking about it. If you have seen someone pursue life with so much passion, it may be that she has found her ikigai.
There are some of us, who their only wish is visiting hospitals in rural communities and helping the sick. Some people’s ikigai is in teaching. They love to teach. They do it for 40 years and they don’t wanna quit. Garcia and Miralles wrote living for your ikigai is one of the reasons for living long, and why many Japanese people, especially those from Okinawa Island, live for up to 100 years.
Ikigai has to be a deep-rooted reason that will live with you forever. It is not a feeling that changes annually or after a decade. It is something that you will trace back 20 years of your life and observe that it has always been present. And something you see you will continue to dwell in, for the foreseeable future.
I came to know more of ikigai when my wife handed me a book titled “Ikigai; The Japanese Secret to A Long and Happy Life” on my birthday. It is one of those books that immediately I start reading it, I begin to smile because I can relate to what the authors are writing. It starts by asking the question what your reason is for being.
I dreaded that question about 6 years ago because I couldn’t tell the answer for years. I searched for about 2 years for the answer of what exactly I wanted to pursue and gain in life that will satiate me. It was the bane of my quarter life crisis. Having found my answer, and living in complete bliss and clarity, I can say I have found my ikigai.
I have found a complete reason to do a lot of things, that I wouldn’t do or think of doing before I found my Ikigai. I was only able to do that because I have found a reason. An overarching objective to my life. That it doesn’t matter if I take road A or road B to a destination, because I know where I am going and most especially, why I am taking that journey. It is always having a compass over a map.
My ikigai has given me the potential to always find my position, values, interest, etc. whenever I am engaging in an activity or with someone. It has become so crystal clear, that I don’t mind going the extra mile if it fulfils me, or saying no if it doesn’t. My ikigai is what will lead me to accept a gift or silver over gold, because it is the silver I need to make drill bits that I can use to dig up my own heaps of gold.
The book says, “if you have a clear sense of your ikigai, each moment will hold so many possibilities that it will seem almost like an eternity”. I cannot deny not having the feeling and seeing the different options and things I can enjoy as I manifest my purpose. In one phrase, clarity of purpose.
If you find yourself wondering what your ikigai is, the book finished by beautifully saying there is no perfect way of connecting to our ikigai. And we shouldn’t worry and stress ourselves much in finding it. But we should remain active in trying. In being busy. In being around the people we love. As Dr Victor Frankl says, your mission is to discover the purpose of your life. To find your ikigai.
If I can finish this mathematically, the side of the equation in life you end up with does not depend on the conditions you find yourself in. But on decisions you make. The prisoners of Nazi Concentration Camps that survived the hardship, when interviewed by Frankl, said the only thing in their mind and their goal when they were incarcerated, was the desire to go out and reconnect with their families and loves ones that survived. They didn’t have much of an option of being prisoners. But they had option of desiring what mindset, attitude and purpose they adopt for their life. And that is what made them carry themselves differently, while labouring in the camps.
Have you found your ikigai or are you still searching? Keep living, keep searching, keep living for your purpose. Bonne chance!
Sadiq.