Ikigai

I first heard about the concept of Ikigai from Seibo Shen (awesome dude, by the way) during his Blunt Talk in SF, and have strived to position myself in a way to achieve Ikigai in my life ever since.

⁠

From Wikipedia⁠

: The word consists of 'Iki' (to live) and 'gai' (reason).[1] The term ikigai

compounds⁠

two Japanese words: iki (

生き⁠

) meaning "life; alive" and kai (

甲斐⁠

) meaning "(an) effect; (a) result; (a) fruit; (a) worth; (a) use; (a) benefit; (no, little) avail" (

sequentially voiced⁠

as gai) to arrive at "a reason for living [being alive]; a meaning for [to] life; what [something that] makes life worth living; a

raison d'etre⁠

".[2]

Ikigai is generally explained as the overlap of what you love, what the world needs, what you can be paid for, and what you’re good at:

⁠

I believe I have found Ikigai in my full time role at SPARC at a general level, and I’m working to create true Ikigai in my life through Happy We Met. Every so often I go through and brainstorm some answers to these questions, just to recalibrate what my priorities are in life. I’ve written some examples that came to mind recently for each of the 4 questions, I encourage you to do the same!

I’ll be honest, it’s rare to walk away with an “aha!” moment that makes you realize there is once niche role at a niche company that was perfectly made for you. The goal of this exercise is more so to get you thinking about what options are out there, and make sure you’re prioritizing your wants and needs in your professional decision making.

⁠

What I’m good at:

Ground game - figuring things out on the fly.

Motivating people.

Making boring things fun.

Cooking

Video Games

Copywriting and proofreading documents.

Laundry

What I enjoy doing:

Laughing

Cooking tasty food

Going on runs

Sleeping in clean sheets.

What the world needs:

Kindness

Puppies

To smoke a joint.

More equitable opportunities for achievement.

Airpods

Foot massages

What I can get paid to do:

Make other people more money.

Sell food I make

Sell anything

Clean

Motivate people

Manage people

Set up organizational structures

Organize camping/leadership retreats

Make people happier

Make things more efficient

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