"Bring meaning and joy to all your days with this internationally best-selling guide to the Japanese concept of ikigai - the happiness of always being busy - as revealed by the daily habits of the world's longest-living people.
"Only staying active will make you want to live a hundred years." (Japanese proverb)
According to the Japanese, everyone has an ikigai - a reason for living. And according to the residents of the Japanese village with the world's longest-living people, finding it is the key to a happier and longer life. Having a strong sense of ikigai - the place where passion, mission, vocation, and profession intersect - means that each day is infused with meaning. It's the reason we get up in the morning. It's also the reason many Japanese never really retire (in fact there's no word in Japanese that means retire in the sense it does in English): They remain active and work at what they enjoy, because they've found a real purpose in life - the happiness of always being busy. In researching this book, the authors interviewed the residents of the Japanese village with the highest percentage of 100-year-olds - one of the world's Blue Zones. Ikigai reveals the secrets to their longevity and happiness: how they eat, how they move, how they work, how they foster collaboration and community, and - their best-kept secret - how they find the ikigai that brings satisfaction to their lives. And it provides practical tools to help you discover your own ikigai. Because who doesn't want to find happiness in every day?"

Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life by Héctor García, Francesc Miralles
Genres: Nonfiction

 

“Forget hygge. It’s all about ikigai.” —The Times (London)

“The most eye-catching autumn lifestyle trend is the Japanese concept of ikigai, which translates as ‘reason to live.’ . . . An attractive and absorbing book.” —The Bookseller

“Discovering your ikigai, or passion, can be one of the greatest journeys you will embark on.” —Forbes

“The keys to longevity are diet, exercise, finding a purpose in life (an ikigai), and forming strong social ties—that is, having a broad circle of friends and good family relations.”

“In Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl cites one of Nietzsche’s famous aphorisms: “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.”

“There is no magic recipe for finding happiness, for living according to your ikigai, but one key ingredient is the ability to reach this state of flow and, through this state, to have an ‘optimal experience.’ […] As Csikszentmihalyi asserts in his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, flow is “the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”

“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. […] Flow is mysterious. It is like a muscle: the more you train it, the more you will flow, and the closer you will be to your ikigai.”

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