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Ew! What’s an “Ikigai”? (Actually, It Could Help You Live to 100)
“Until she was 110, this woman — who lived in three different centuries — cared for herself unassisted.”
-Ikigai, by Francesc Miralles and Hector Garcia
The right book can literally (sic) make you live longer. Yet another argument for picking up a great book instead of the remote (which will kill you faster than smoking, apparently)!
There’s one in particular that’s been blowing up for the last little while — selling something like 1.5 million copies — and it’s called Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life.
While I definitely did think it was good, and I did take some excellent notes (below), I also think that maybe it’s a little overhyped.
That being said, it’s only about 200 pages long, which is really not a big time investment for something that could help you find your reason for living.
That’s what the Japanese word “ikigai” means in English — reason for living — and according to the authors and their extensive field research, most of the longest-living residents of Japan and the other “Blue Zones” have one.
It doesn’t have to be some great big “Purpose” either; plenty of interviewees in this book (most of them over the age of 100) just talk about pursuing…
