Ikigai: Its True Japanese Origins, Beyond the Western Framework
Ikigai is everywhere, in bookshops, on social media, in personal development workshops, almost always summed up by the same four-circle diagram. In our article on Japanese wellness traditions, we promised more in-depth articles on each of them. Here's the one on ikigai, to understand where it really comes from, what that famous diagram actually tells us, and how to draw inspiration from it without distorting it.
Ikigai, a notion much simpler than people think
The word ikigai combines iki, life, and gai, a value or effect, which literally gives a reason to live. In Japan, in everyday use, it isn't a solemn concept you go digging for deep within yourself during a three-day retreat: it's simply what gives you a reason to get up in the morning, and it can be as modest as a garden to tend, grandchildren to watch grow up, or a cup of tea carefully prepared each morning. Originally, it has nothing to do with a professional quest for meaning or a career strategy.
Where the concept really comes from
The first serious study of ikigai is credited to Mieko Kamiya, a Japanese psychiatrist, in her book published in 1966, titled Ikigai ni tsuite, which could be translated as On the reason for living. In it, she studied this concept in particular among patients with serious illnesses, looking at what still gives a life meaning and continuity despite everything. The link between ikigai and longevity, heard everywhere today, owes a great deal to journalist Dan Buettner, known for his work on Blue Zones, those regions of the world where people live particularly long lives, Okinawa among them. It's this meeting between a Japanese psychological concept and a Western journalistic investigation into longevity that made the word famous well beyond Japan.
The four-circle diagram, a recent, Western invention
Here's the most useful clarification in this article: the famous four-circle diagram (what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs, what you can be paid for) is not an ancient Japanese invention. It's credited to Marc Winn, who is said to have drawn inspiration from an earlier diagram on the meaning of life published by Andrés Zuzunaga in 2011, simply swapping the word purpose for ikigai. Some researchers even describe it as an appealing ideal but one fairly removed from reality, particularly because it assumes you must be paid for what gives your life meaning, an idea completely foreign to the original ikigai.
This diagram remains a tool for reflection that can be useful, particularly for thinking through a career change. But confusing it with Japanese ikigai amounts to reducing an everyday life concept to a career exercise, which completely betrays its original spirit.
How ikigai is really used day to day
Rather than filling in a four-box diagram, the Japanese spirit of ikigai invites you to pay attention to what, very concretely, already gives you energy in an ordinary day: a morning ritual, a moment with someone, an activity you'd do even without being obligated to. There's no magic method, and no single right answer to find once and for all. It's more a question you keep asking yourself, without necessarily expecting a dramatic answer: what, today, made me want to get up?
The link between ikigai and wellbeing
The link between ikigai and longevity, popularized by the research on Okinawa, remains above all a correlation observed within a given population, not definitive scientific proof that having an ikigai extends life. What's more widely documented, however, is the link between a sense of meaning or purpose and better everyday mental wellbeing, less perceived stress, and a stronger sense of continuity when facing hardship. We cover other effects matcha has on the body and mind in our article on its benefits, where this same principle of ritual and everyday attention comes up again and again.
At Nōka, our ikigai: passion and sharing
If we had to apply this idea to our own work, our ikigai would come down to two words, passion and sharing. Passion, for matcha itself, its taste, its preparation, everything hidden behind a simple cup. Sharing, the desire to spread the word about a Japanese culture and craft that deserve to be understood in depth rather than reduced to a trend, in keeping with what we try to do with every article on this blog. It's also what connects us to traditions like the tea ceremony and chanoyu, itself passed down from generation to generation for centuries.
In summary
Japanese ikigai is a much more modest, everyday notion than the four-circle diagram that circulates in the West, itself a recent Western invention rather than an ancient tradition. Its real link to wellbeing lies in the attention paid to whatever, each day, gives a simple reason to get up, not in a career exercise to complete once and for all. At Nōka, we prefer to see it as a mix of passion and sharing, which probably suits us better.
Have a question about ikigai or other Japanese traditions? Feel free to contact us, we'll be happy to answer.
