What’s Your Ikigai?

by Don Fausel

It’s never been easy to be a human being! We have always had to wrestle with strong and painful fears. Now if we face ourselves honestly, or if we merely eavesdrop on the secret murmurings of our heart, isn’t this what we discover—that one of our basic fears, the fear beneath many fears is the dread of being nothing, of having no real importance, no lasting worth, no purpose in life.

It is precisely to this fear of being nobody, having no worth, that our Judeo-Christian-Humanitarian ethic reminds us that our basic value is not something we achieve in competition with everyone else, but something we gratefully accept along with everyone else. We need not become important, we are important. We need not become somebody, we are somebody. No matter what others may say or think about us, or do to us, we are somebody.

As we grow older and become less able to function physically or mentally as we did in our younger years, we need to remind ourselves, that we are still somebody, with the same dignity and worth, with the same God-given inalienable rights. Sometimes when we’re not able to do a lot of the things we used to do, when our body is failing us and our short term memory is not as good as our long term memory, it’s hard for us to accept the fact that we are somebody worthwhile. That’s why it’s particularly important for us Elders to periodically ask ourselves, what is my purpose in life?

Several years ago I discovered a Japanese word that captures the importance of having a positive attitude and purpose in our life. The word is Ikigai, (pronounced ee-ki-guy) the Japanese word used to describe why I get up in the morning, what my sense of purpose is. I love the word Ikigai! I like saying it! I like writing it! Ikigai, Ikigai! I think it was the beginning of my interest in happiness. I realized if you don’t have an Ikigai, you’re not going to be happy. But more about that in another blog.

I was even more impressed with the origin of the word and its application for us elders. Researchers have identified what they call Blue Zones. These are areas throughout the world with a high percentage of centenarians; places where people enjoy remarkably long full lives. Their lives are not only longer but physically and mentally, they are more active than elders in other areas of the world. National Geographic’s Dan Buettner has traveled the globe to uncover the best strategies for longevity found in these Blue Zones. One of those areas is the Japanese island of Okinawa. It was there that he discovered that one of the characteristics for a long healthy life was having an Ikigai. To a resident of Okinawa, Ikigai can be anything from tending their vegetable garden, taking care of great grandchildren, to walking and exercising every day. Whatever it is that motivated them to remain involved, they give credit to their Ikigai. After years of research Dan Buettner concludes:

One of the biggest revolutions in thought in our time is the changing of emphasis from physical health to mental health in connection to longevity. The effects of negative stress and ‘inflammation’ are cited more and more frequently as the cause of early death and lowered quality of life. One of the most important methods for counteracting that is Ikigai, a sense of purpose. … Ikigai is something that brings joy and contentment. It fills a person with resolve and a sense of satisfaction in what they are doing. Most of all, it brings happiness.”

Here’s a TED TALK by Dan Buettner titled Okinawa, Ikigai, and the Secrets of Longevity . As usual, one TED TALK is worth pages of my words.

Finally, I’d like to introduce you to one of my all time heroes, who exemplifies what it means to have an Ikigai. She was known as Granny D. If you don’t remember her, she was a social activist,  whose real name was Doris Haddock, from Dublin, New Hampshire. In 1999, at the age of ninety, Granny D. walked 3,200 miles across America to raise awareness about a campaign for political finance reform. She walked ten miles a day for 14 months. She is widely credited for galvanizing the public support that helped pass the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act in 2002.

In 2003 at the age of 94, she drove around the country on a 22,000 mile voter registration effort targeting working women and minorities. She cut her tour short to challenge the incumbent New Hampshire senator, Judd Gregg, in the 2004 election. Her grassroots campaign earned her 34% of the vote. In her later years she published a book entitled, You’re Never Too Old to Raise a Little Hell. She died peacefully in her home six weeks after she turned 100 in 2010. Former president Jimmy Carter described her as “…a true patriot, and our nation has been blessed by her remarkable life. Her story will inspire people of all ages for generations to come.”

I’m not suggesting that we all need to follow in Granny D’s footsteps, by walking 3,200 miles for a righteous cause, or running for the Senate. But we can all be motivated by the spirit she modeled by following her Ikigai, and in our own way, seriously consider identifying our own Ikigai. We need to know and follow our values, passions and talents–and to share them by example on a regular basis. It might be by living our lives, with our physical and mental restrictions, as a legacy for our grandchildren or great grandchildren, or showing compassion for those in need, who are less fortunate than we are. Whatever we choose to do, it’s our Ikigai. So what is it that gives your life a sense of worth? What gets you out of bed in the morning?

Since I retired, my major Ikigai for the past five years or so has been writing. To paraphrase the French philosopher, Descartes, “I write, therefore I am!” What’s your Ikigai?

…Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Stuff

by Dr Don Fausel

I remember reading a Christmas article by Dorothy Day back in the early 1950s. In her inimitable style she paraphrased Luke 2:1. Her version was:

“…a decree went out from Macy’s, and Walmart, and Sears, that the whole world should do their Christmas shopping.”

I substituted Walmart and Sears because the other department stores she mentioned are no longer in business.

I believe Dorothy Day was a prophet of excessive consumerism that has become more contagious in our society in recent years. According to Peter Stearns in his book Consumerism in World History, consumption has been around for centuries in different societies, but excessive consumerism is more current. To go way back in history, the Sacred Book of China, Tao Te Ching, which literally means the way, was written in China around the 6th century BCE by Lao Tsu. Verse 46 seems to be a forewarning of what we are experiencing today. Here are several lines from that verse.

“There is no greater loss than losing the Way, no greater curse than covetousness, no greater tragedy than discontentment; the worst of faults is to always want more—always. Contentment alone is enough. Indeed the bliss of eternity can be found in contentment.”

We all know that many of us buy things we don’t need; that advertisers exploit consumers through promoting campaigns that encourage us to buy stuff we can do without, because they know that we believe that more stuff will make us happier, smarter or more loved as we pursue the American Dream that’s built on the mentality that more stuff is better. The American Dream has become the American Nightmare.

I suspect that the philosopher/comedian, and later day Lao Tzu, George Carlin was way ahead of his time when he chose “stuff” to characterize consumerism in the early 1980s in a routine that he named A Place for my Stuff. Since then the word “stuff” has become the symbol for all those things that we buy, but could do without.

As you might know, there are 12-Step programs for shopaholics. Compulsive shopping can be as debilitating as gambling or alcohol addiction. Psychologists believe that the person who is a compulsive shopper uses shopping to soothe him/herself rather than dealing with life’s challenges head on. Obsessive shopping ultimately can lead to worse problems than the one from which the person is seeking relief. In many incidents the compulsive shopper’s behavior puts his/her family’s welfare in grave jeopardy, which often leads to divorce.

In the words of Lao Tsu,

“She/he who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.”

Here’s another quote, this one from I Wish You Enough by Bob Perks,

“When having more leaves you empty, you’ll discover true happiness lies in enough!”

Or how about one from Gandhi,

“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.”

or as we used to say in the Bronx,

“Enough already!”

Although all these quotations might be thought-provoking, they don’t provide a black and white answer for our problems with stuff, or the answer to the question, “What’s enough under every situation?” We need to determine whether we’re concerned about how much stuff we need versus how much stuff we want. For example, do I need to buy a car because my car doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that the new models have? I don’t believe we need a bureaucrat to figure it out for us, but sometimes we need help to motivate us to make the right choice in answering the question—what is enough for me?

Here are two YouTube videos and a book that you might find to be helpful:

This one is by Annie Leonard, The Story of Stuff:

She also wrote a book with Annie Conrad titled The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health and a Vision of Change. The title says a lot.

This video is a TED TALK, A Rich Life with Less Stuff: The Minimalists:

In future blogs I will continue with the theme of happiness and point out how the pursuit of stuff produces more destruction than just what it does to us as individuals, but is also is connected with the damage it creates for Mother Earth.