One of my favourites of all the countries I have visited is Japan. Tokyo is a sprawling city of 13.8 million. And yet, you can walk through its leafy boulevards without having to constantly watch your back. It is a clean, safe and orderly place. With limited natural resources and a land prone to tsunamis and earthquakes, Japan is a wealthy country of 125 million, with a per capita income of $43,000 and a GDP of $5.4 trillion, coming just behind USA and China.
For centuries, they were a closed society, ruled by a feudal Samurai warrior shogunate. The Meiji Restoration of 1868 set the country on the path to industrialisation and national transformation while preserving the essence of their culture and civilisation.
The country suffered the devastation of nuclear bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Despite this tragedy, they made a remarkable come-back. Today, Japan stands at the front ranks of advanced industrial-technological nations. Average life expectancy is 84.79 years, compared to Nigeria’s 53. On the island of Okinawa, living to be 100 is the norm rather than the exception.
The essence of finding your ikigai is when what you love and are good at meets what you can be valued and paid for because it is needed by the world
The Japanese are known for their legendary work ethic. The quality of its products is second to none. Legend has it that the Japanese used to produce rather shoddy products, until MIT professor Edward Demming introduced to them the concept of Total Quality Management (TQM). They took to it with panache, more so that it resonated with their own traditional philosophy of Kaizen (continuous improvement).
Japan is by no means a perfect society. It has a rapidly ageing population. It also has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. The country went through what has been termed “the lost decade” in the 1990s following a stock market bubble that was sooner destined to obey the law of gravity. The national debt currently stands at $13.6 trillion – a staggering 257 percent of GDP.
Despite these challenges, Japan is a cohesive and prosperous democracy; a highly advanced knowledge economy.
The major philosophy underpinning Japanese flourishing is known as “Ikagai” — literally meaning a “reason for being”. It refers to having a direction and life-purpose. Four fundamental components of life are embedded in the Ikigai philosophy: passion, vocation, profession and mission.
This philosophy emerged in Okinawa, an island that was one of the epicentres of WW II, in which more than 200,000 perished. Out of that tragedy they evolved a philosophy that gave them renewed hope for the future. In a manner of speaking, they had found their ikigai; building a sense of community anchored on kindness, purpose and living in the moment. It is no surprise therefore that the Okinawans have such a zest for living; aided by a good climate, excellent food, social harmony and peace.
The Japanese believe that every human being has an ikigai (pronounced ee-kee-guy), a “path to life fulfillment”. The ikigai philosophy is not a quick-fix happiness pill that you can swallow. The Japanese are not a particularly happy people either. But scientific research has shown that a combination of a balanced diet, exercise and life-mission focus has been at the heart of Japanese success, longevity and flourishing.
The German-American psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, in his famous book, Man’s Search for Meaning (Beacon Press, 1992), confessed that, as an inmate of a German concentration camp, he found that those who perished were mostly those who lost the will-to-live. He confessed that whenever he himself was about to give up, he imagined all the great scientific worksthat he wanted to produce and the future that lay ahead. You could say that, in Japanese parlance, he had found his ikigai.
The foundation of Ikigai lies in answering the key questions: What gets you up in the morning? What puts you in your best element? During what activities do you experience flow? What do you find easy to do? What did you like doing as a kid?
The essence of finding your ikigai is when what you love and are good at meets what you can be valued and paid for because it is needed by the world. Once you are able to identify these key elements about yourself, you should resolve to follow your own compass.
Ikigai does not promise the elixir to eternal happiness. It is not a magic lantern to making billions of dollars. It is merely a key that opens the door to the resplendent mansion of hope, self-actualisation and personal fulfilment. A life of purpose undoubtedly contributes to the prospects of a long and happy life.
In a time of great stress in our country, I recommend this philosophy for people who face anxiety and fear in our lawless and nihilistic country. Companies, government and other organisations can build the ikigai philosophy into their corporate culture by making the workspace a happier experience. It has been proven that workers would much prefer working in a happy organisation with lesser pay than in an unhappy organisation that pays more.
We face dark times. Rumours of war everywhere. Hunger and anger stare us in the face. The easiest temptation is despair and give up. Many young people are trying desperately to flee to Canada or the United States.
Our skies are overcast with bad omens. As the immortal Chirstopher Okigbo put it: “And the secret thing in its heaving threatens with iron mask/The last lighted torch of the century”. I solemnly prophesy that, after the storm, a rainbow will appear. Therefore, keep going, no matter what. Discover your own ikigai. Keep walking. The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Find your life-purpose and pursue it. Dream big.
Follow your vocation and star. For the bloodthirsty demons that currently stalk our land with arrogant swagger will sooner or later eat the dust of their own wickedness. The dawn of a New Nigeria beckons!
