Ikigai Quotes

essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

Our ikigai is different for all of us, but one thing we have in common is that we are all searching for meaning.

Life is not a problem to be solved. Just remember to have something that keeps you busy doing what you love while being surrounded by the people who love you.

Walk slowly and you’ll go far.

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

Concentrating on one thing at a time may be the single most important factor in achieving flow.

there is nothing wrong with enjoying life’s pleasures as long as they do not take control of your life as you enjoy them

He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. —Aristotle

It’s not what happens to you, but how you react that matters.

There is no future, no past. There is only the present.

Getting back to Albert Einstein, “a happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell on the future.”4

The happiest people are not the ones who achieve the most. They are the ones who spend more time than others in a state of flow.

We have to learn to turn off the autopilot that’s steering us in an endless loop. We all know people who snack while talking on the phone or watching the news. You ask them if the omelet they just ate had onion in it, and they can’t tell you,

We’re all going to die. Some people are scared of dying. Never be afraid to die. Because you’re born to die.

We don't create our feelings; they simply come to us, and we have to accept them. The trick is, to welcome them.

In the West, ikigai is often used as a career-finding diagram. In Japan, ikigai is a way of life.

Be led by your curiosity, and keep busy by doing things that fill you with meaning and happiness.

Stop regretting the past and fearing the future. Today is all you have. Make the most of it. Make it worth remembering.

Metabolism slows down 90 percent after 30 minutes of sitting.

There is a tension between what is good for someone and what they want to do. This is because people, especially older people, like to do things as they've always done them. The problem is that when the brain develops ingrained habits, it doesn't need to think anymore. Things get done very quickly and efficiently on automatic pilot, often in a very advantageous way. This creates a tendency to stick to routines, and the only way of breaking these is to confront the brain with new information.

It is much more important to have a compass pointing to a concrete objective than to have a map.

When confronted with a big goal, try to break it down into parts and then attack each part one by one.

a happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell on the future.

To be able to concentrate for a considerable amount of time is essential to difficult achievement

simply interacting with others—playing a game, for example—offers new stimuli and helps prevent the depression that can come with solitude.

Spend no more than twenty minutes on Facebook per day

Presented with new information, the brain creates new connections and is revitalized. This is why it is so important to expose yourself to change, even if stepping outside your comfort zone means feeling a bit of anxiety.

We don’t create the meaning of our life, as Sartre claimed—we discover it.

to focus on a task we need: 1. To be in a distraction-free environment 2. To have control over what we are doing at every moment

The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

A man is like a forest; individual and yet connected and dependent on others for growth.

Being in a hurry is inversely proportional to quality of

appreciate the beauty of imperfection as an opportunity for growth.

Ikigai can be described as an intersection between 4 different elements: what you're passionate about, where your skills lie, how you can earn a living and what the world needs.

the keys to longevity are diet, exercise, finding a purpose in life (an ikigai), and forming strong social ties—

As the quip attributed to Einstein goes, “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That is relativity.

the people who live the longest have two dispositional traits in common: a positive attitude and a high degree of emotional awareness. In other words, those who face challenges with a positive outlook and are able to manage their emotions are already well on their way toward longevity.

Ikigai resides in the realm of small things. The morning air, the cup of coffee, the ray of sunshine, the massaging of octopus meat and the American president’s praise are on equal footing. Only those who can recognize the richness of this whole spectrum really appreciate and enjoy it.

Instead of worrying about the past or the future, we should appreciate things just as they are in the moment, in the now.

Instead of searching for beauty in perfection, we should look for it in things that are flawed, incomplete.

Even if we are tempted to focus on the events that seem most significant in our lives overall, each major event wouldn't happen without the smaller moments leading up to it.

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, Courage to change the things which should be changed, and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other." - Reinhold Niebuhr

Just possibly, ikigai makes a Peter Pan of all of us. And that is not necessarily a bad thing. Let us all be twelve years old! Youthfulness of mind is important in ikigai, but so is commitment and passion, however seemingly insignificant your goal.

Precisely because an encounter is ephemeral, it must be taken seriously. Life, after all, is filled with things that happen only once. The realization of the ‘onceness’ of life’s encounters and pleasures provides the foundations for the Japanese conceptualization of ikigai, and is central to the Japanese philosophy of life. When you take notice of the small details of life, nothing is repeated. Every opportunity is special.

Stoicism, which centers on the idea that there is nothing wrong with enjoying life’s pleasures as long as they do not take control of your life as you enjoy them. You have to be prepared for those pleasures to disappear.

Life is pure imperfection, as the philosophy of wabi-sabi teaches us, and the passage of time shows us that everything is fleeting, but if you have a clear sense of your ikigai, each moment will hold so many possibilities that it will seem almost like an eternity.

七転び八起き Fall seven times, rise eight. — Japanese proverb

Only things that are imperfect, incomplete, and ephemeral can truly be beautiful, because only those things resemble the natural world.

If you can make the process of making the effort your primary source of happiness, then you have succeeded in the most important challenge of your life.

Avoid spending time doing things we don’t enjoy

My ikigai is to live, or aspire to live, in a beautiful world. 'Beautiful' can mean many things, including comfort and harmony, as well as something looking or feeling beautiful.

Ikigai is not just something you find within yourself, but is often something that connects you to the outside world.

There is a Japanese proverb ‘Suki koso mono no jouzu nare’, which means that how much you love something determines how good you become at it. To find ikigai, find out what you love doing by paying

Morita explained the idea of letting go of negative feelings with the following fable: A donkey that is tied to a post by a rope will keep walking around the post in an attempt to free itself, only to become more immobilized and attached to the post. The same thing applies to people with obsessive thinking who become more trapped in their own suffering when they try to escape from their fears and discomfort.5

His experiences as a prisoner at Auschwitz showed him that “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

Morita likened emotions to the weather: We can’t predict or control them; we can only observe them.

Getting back to Albert Einstein, “a happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell on the future.

Hara hachi bu,” which is repeated before or after eating and means something like “Fill your belly to 80 percent.

There is, in fact, no word in Japanese that means retire in the sense of “leaving the workforce for good

The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love and something to hope for.

Keep going; don’t change your path.” そのままでいいがな

Just as worry often brings about precisely the thing that was feared, excessive attention to a desire (or “hyper-intention”) can keep that desire from being fulfilled.

when you have a clear purpose, no one can stop you.

Have a clear, concrete objective

Even those who claim to be good at multitasking are not very productive. In fact, they are some of the least productive people.

When doing business in Japan, process, manners, and how you work on something is more important than the final results

you have to accept that the world—like the people who live in it—is imperfect, but that it is still full of opportunities for growth and achievement.

As a rule of thumb, remind yourself: “Rituals over goals.” The happiest people are not the ones who achieve the most. They are the ones who spend more time than others in a state of flow.

In japanese culture, there's a belief that only imperfect objects, like a cracked teacup, can truly be beautiful. This is called wabi sabi. Try to let go of the quest for perfection, and instead accept the beauty that lies in all of life's imperfections. The result will be extra energy, less stress and a longer life.

One way to reach a state of mindfulness is through meditation, which helps filter the information that reaches us from the outside world. It can also be achieved through breathing exercises, yoga, and body scans.

Imagine that a writer has to finish a novel in three months. The objective is clear; the problem is that the writer can't stop obsessing over it. Every day she wakes up thinking, "I have to write that novel," and every day she sets about reading the newspaper and cleaning the house. Every evening she feels frustrated and promises she'll get to work the next day. Days, weeks, and months pass, and the writer still has't gotten anything down on the page, when all it would have taken was to sit down and get that first word out, then the second . . . to flow with the project, expressing their ikigai. As soon as you take these first small steps, your anxiety will disappear and you will achieve a pleasant flow in the activity you're doing.

We often think that combining tasks will save us time, but scientific evidence shows that it has the opposite effect. Even those who claim to be good at multitasking are not very productive. In fact, they are some of the least productive people. Our brains can take million bits of information but can only actually process of few dozen per second. When we say we're multitasking, what we're really doing is switching back and forth between tasks very quickly. Unfortunately, we're not computers adept at parallel processing. We end up spending all our energy alternative between tasks, instead of focusing on doing one of them well. Concentrating on one thing at a time may be the single most important factor in achieving flow.

ikigai brings you focus and direction, and serves as an anchor in your life. With ikigai in mind, you will not have to think twice about what matters to you, and hence you will know what to prioritize. We are bombarded with endless decisions to be made day after day, but knowing your ikigai will eliminate your insecurities about your decisions and allow you to make better ones. Your will find that simple decisions, like how you spend your time, will automatically be made for you when you know your ikigai.

Okinawans live by the principle of ichariba chode, a local expression that means “treat everyone like a brother, even if you’ve never met them before.” It turns out that one of the secrets to happiness of Ogimi’s residents is feeling like part of a community.

Sunday neurosis, for example, is what happens when, without the obligations and commitments of the workweek, the individual realizes how empty he is inside.

Morita therapy focuses on teaching patients to accept their emotions without trying to control them, since their feelings will change as a result of their actions.

Stress: Accused of killing longevity

Only staying active will make You want to a live a hundred years.

Can someone really retire if he is passionate about what he does?

Happiness is always determined by your heart.” しあわせはいつも自分の心がきめる.

Concentrating on one thing at a time may be the single most important factor in achieving flow

Happiness is in the doing, not in the result.

[...] Get rid of the things that make you fragile We're taking the negative route for this exercise. Ask yourself: What makes me fragile? Certain people, things, and habits generate losses for us and make us vulnerable. Who and what are they? When we make our New Year's resolutions, we tend to emphasize adding new challenges to our lives. It's great to have this kind of objective, but setting "good riddance" goals can have an even bigger impact.

We should never forget that everything we have and all the people we love will disappear at some point. This is something we should keep in mind, but without giving in to pessimism.

Not only does every job come with its own set of difficulties, so no job is ever perfect, but also, it is your responsibility to tailor your work to make it as meaningful as possible.

the things we love are like the leaves of a tree: They can fall at any moment with a gust of wind. He also said that changes in the world around us are not accidental but rather form part of the essence of the universe

There is no absolute formula for happiness—each unique condition of life can serve as the foundation for happiness in its own unique way. You can be happy when married with children, or when married without children. You can be happy when you are single, without a college degree, or with one. You can be happy when you are slim, you can be happy when you are overweight. You can be happy when living in a warm climate as in California, you can be happy when living in Montana, where you have severe winter conditions. As a sumo wrestler, you can be happy when you make it to yokozuna, or you can be happy while remaining one of the underdogs all your career, doing small chores, never giving up.

Selling your house, giving away possessions, working multiple jobs for a period of time, going back to school and moving in with friends or relatives, sharing a car with your partner and riding your bike more, investing all your savings in a new venture, living on the other side of the world for a year— your friends may not understand, your co-workers may not get it, your extended family may think you’ve lost your mind— that’s okay. Better to receive some odd looks and have a few people roll their eyes than spend your days wondering, What if I did that . . . ? Take that step. Make that leap. Try that new thing. If it helps clarify your ikigai, if it gets you up in the morning, if it’s good for you and the world, do it.

Bathing is not just about a quick rinse. Taking care of your whole self is essential in maintaining balance and contentment. And rituals around bathing play their part - they provide time in the day when you can focus on yourself, and clear your mind and body.

Isn’t it interesting how an element , which might not be appreciated by itself, turns out to contribute to the overall quality when blended with elements of different characters? It is like the essence of life itself. The complex interaction between various elements in an organic system makes life robust and sustainable.

At a certain point, a casual observer might feel that these pursuers of perfection are going over the top, and that the effort is too much. Just at that moment, something miraculous happens. You realize that there is actually further depth to the quality you are pursuing. There is a breakthrough, or the production of something completely different. With the creation of a new genre of products, a brand new market emerges, in which people are prepared to pay premium prices for qualities previously unimagined.

Bir şeylerin o kadar harika olmadığını kabul etmek iyidir ama olasılıklarla dolu bir dünyada şimdi ve burada olmanın bir ayrıcalık olduğunu asla unutmayın.

Soaking up a moderate amount of sun each day.

Fight for yourself

The Japanese do not need grandiose motivational frameworks to keep going, but rely more on the little rituals in their daily routines.

[...] Get rid of the things that make you fragile We're taking the negative route for this exercise. Ask yourself: What makes me fragile? Certain people, things, and habits generate losses for us and make us vulnerable. Who and what are they? When we make our New Year's resolutions, we tend to emphasize adding new challenges to our lives. It's great to have this kind of objective, but setting "good riddance" goals can have an even bigger impact.

Researchers at the Heidelberg University Hospital conducted a study in which they subjected a young doctor to a job interview, which they made even more stressful by forcing him to solve complex math problems for thirty minutes. Afterward, they took a blood sample. What they discovered was that his antibodies had reacted to stress the same way they react to pathogens, activating the proteins that trigger an immune response. The problem is that this response not only neutralizes harmful agents, it also damages healthy cells, leading them to age prematurely.

We don’t create our feelings; they simply come to us, and we have to accept them. The trick is welcoming them. Morita likened emotions to the weather: We can’t predict or control them; we can only observe them. To this point, he often quoted the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh, who would say, “Hello, solitude. How are you today? Come, sit with me, and I will care for you.

longevity, a woman who was about to turn 100 years old sang the following song for us in a mixture of Japanese and the local dialect: To keep healthy and have a long life, eat just a little of everything with relish, go to bed early, get up early, and then go out for a walk. We live each day with serenity and we enjoy the journey. To keep healthy and have a long life, we get on well with all of our friends. Spring, summer, fall, winter, we happily enjoy all the seasons. The secret is to not get distracted by how old the fingers are; from the fingers to the head and back once again. If you keep moving with your fingers working, 100 years will come to you.*