Ikigai?

After a personal crisis that really hit home, the past couple of weeks I've been obsessing over a Japanese idea called the ‘ikigai’. This roughly translates to your reason for living. It's one of those novel ideas that you come across in a random YouTube suggestion bar or book as in my case and ignore because it sounds like pseudoscience.

But this time round I decided to give the idea some thought. And what I found out was disturbingly mind blowing, not for the grandeur of its composition, but the simplicity of it all.

It suggested a life that revolves around character that is refined by a craft of service...and the idea is currently doing somersaults in my head...

For the past 60 years or so, we have been set up to believe that the world is a universe of appearance rather than character.

This simple idea has led us to have trouble believing in divine promises from God, because we can't see them - forgetting God is a God of character ,judged by his character and vindicated by his character and never by how things look like.

We have trouble building things from scratch over time because what we perceive as mattering is what we can see rather than the character we develop along the way and the process we follow.

We want glamour, and we want it yesterday, we want good bodies with supermodel proportions, we want fast cars, quick money, the big house, the coolest or richest or most beautiful? Partner.

We want so much that we forget that good things are a natural child of process, process that is carved by character, and oftentimes those good things are chains that bind us to a sad meaningless life.

In my short ecclesiastical journey, I have found out a different approach to life, a different way of finding what sets your heart on fire, and it's not in building companies or careers, it's not in fame, not in profit, not in perfect health or even in beautiful relationships...

don't get me wrong, I personally will do everything I’ve just mentioned, they are not wrong in themselves, but they shouldn't be the point of focus in life. The beauty of life is in giving…

It's not in acquiring wealth, acquiring fame, getting good health, getting a handsome husband and a white picket fenced home, it's not in responsibility-less living, it's not in freedom at the expense of others, it's not in taking

Your life purpose, your ‘ikigai’ whatever it may be is tied to giving something you have and giving it over and over and over and over again

‘Give more more than you take from the world’