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PHILOSOPHY | SYSTEMS THINKING | AGILITY | IKIGAI
An effective therapy against having all the big answers
(a brief note about how to drop the certainties of life )
I have been working with the concept of ikigai for a whole long while now, going to Japan for research, authoring articles, doing a book (with Stephanie Fehr), and facilitating plenty of workshops. And the more I do of all this, and the more people I meet on the road, the more I am surprised by how much human beings in general seem to be hunting for meaning and purpose.
It looks like we are somewhat lost in the insignificance of life — and none of the material answers and solutions provide for the satisfaction and consolation we are really after. What we really want is not a penthouse and a pension. It’s not the proverbial five C’s of Singapore: cash, credit, car, condo, club membership. What we want is to matter. We want meaning and purpose.
Who can blame us? We live in a time of faux philosophy. We are constantly targeted, admonished, preached to, belittled, yes, gaslighted by self-appointed wise men (yes, mostly men) and self-declared gurus — sending us the most shallow of life lessons:
Always begin with the why
Be the change you want to see in the world
When life gives…
