From Marc Winn: According to the Japanese, everyone has an ikigai. An ikigai is essentially ‘a reason to get up in the morning.’ A reason to enjoy life.
After working part-time for over three years, I’m starting back full-time next week. Me being part-time at work was so that I could be full-time on “family operations,” but now that the kids are a bit more self-sufficient and the AI overlords are threatening humanity, it seemed to make sense to switch some focus back to being employable for a few more years.
That being said, I want to be doing stuff that I a) can get paid for and b) want to be doing, which is where this post from Matt Webb and diagram from Marc Winn came up for me.
Have you found your ikigai?
- Are you doing something that you love?
- That the world needs?
- That you are good at?
- And that you can be paid for?
How can you live with purpose today, to live a longer and healthier life?
I’ve not got any of this figured out, by the way, but I thought this was a nice complement to my lessons learned through coaching.
Having some extra money will be nice, but, as I alluded to above, the biggest reason for doing this is so that I don’t become obsolete (yet) as an employable human and have a chance to make some more meaningful contributions to humanity. Maybe this is a sad commentary on the state of modern work, but I find it difficult to make a meaningful impact when I’m only dedicating 16-24 hours a week to work. Ok yes, I know I’m making an impact through my kids too, and just being me is enough. Work is generally overrated, but still, I generally enjoy working with people! So I’m ratcheting it up and, hopefully, will be doing more of the work that I enjoy. Win-win.
I think part of growing up is taking what it is that people tease you about at school, and figuring out how to make it a superpower.
Copyright your faults
Comments welcome!