Day Eight
So into the second week and again it
was a struggle to turn on the 'lapdog' and think about having to write but now we
are here let us just get this done. (Interesting that I have become a plural!)
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| Was yesterdays post like this awful breakfast? |
Only one observation from the
previous two days and that is that yesterday was the lowest ever readership
since I started, by a very long way.
Most of the other posts have had about 50 – 60 views, Day Six (the
struggle) was over 70 and grew really quickly.
Yesterday was a miserable
16. I say miserable because I guess
these statistics are how we put a value to a post in this age of data and
statistics and measurement of everything.
But let us not start again down that path eh?
My guess is that it was just way too
long. It weighed in at around a 1000
words and perhaps most people looked at it like they might look at the world’s
largest breakfast, felt a little bit sick and said, ‘no I will skip today,
thank you all the same’.
Ikigai – my new favourite word
Well that and Tsunduko, two excellent words.
About a week ago a friend shared this link to some Japanese words and I have
to say there are quite a few that I really like but the two that really
resonated with me are Ikigai and Tsunduko.
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| The Art of Tsunduko? |
I think I participate in the act of
tsonduko quite a lot and find it very rewarding for some reason that I am not
quite sure about. I am sure I cannot be
alone in this or there would not be a word.
For those that do not click through to the links, it means the act of
buying a book and then leaving it unread, often with a pile of other
books. I can even recall my mum doing
this when I was a kid as well. Is the
pleasure from this from the potential of the book? The fact that this gift to yourself is there,
waiting to be explored at some future date.
Is that why this act of buying something and yet at the same time postponing
gratification the reason this feels good? Or perhaps I am just weird. Is it the sort of opposite of that empty,
hollow feeling you get when you have finished a really good book and yet you
want the story to continue? Does anyone
know if there is a word for that?
Ikigai – a sort of raison d’etre,
the thing that gets us out of bed and fired up and enthusiastic. I have
had many lessons in my life of the importance of this concept. In fact it is pretty well one of the
pillars to my state of happiness.
Anytime that I move too far away from my Ikigai then I do become very
unhappy and discontent. Until I take
steps to move back towards the path of my ikigai I am restless and indeed
miserable. I know some of my readers have
seen me like this.
At times following my
ikigai has led me to move house, change jobs, end relationships and really up root things. For me it more than vocation, though that is
the closest English word I can think of. It goes deeper than a calling, it is
not just doing the thing I most enjoy, it is doing the very thing that I believe
I was born to do.
I do not know if many people find
their Ikigai. I know that I feel lucky
to have found mine and know very clearly what it is. The internal compass in me is so strong in
this regard. When I align it to my true
north really amazing things seem to happen for me, for which I am grateful. Follow your own Ikigai.
Thank's for a the post. This time it really made me think. I regognize Tsunduko for sure. Right now I have five or six unread books waiting for the moment I grab them and start reading. But what really needs my attention is Ikigai. I realize I am a happy person most of the time, but why? What is it that keeps me going? You gave me hard times, Mark. I have to contemplate this Ikigai thing.
ReplyDeletePirjo, thank you for your comment and glad to hear I made you think! I do consider myself very lucky that what I reallly wanted and needed to do it life, my ikigai, was revealed to me in a very clear way. As you well know, I still have to keep reminding myself and making changes to get the compass back on track.
ReplyDeleteCan our Ikigai change during our lives? I saw Kevin on the track this morning (that is, Kevin was on the track and I was walking past the track on my way to get a donut and a Mountain Dew...). He stopped to talk and of course your name came up. Now that I think about it, you and he were on parallel Ikigai for awhile but now you seem on very different courses. Is there some underlying purpose that caused you and he to seem to be following similar paths but now cause you to be on such different paths? Something which we can't see?
ReplyDeleteThank you Dr. Slowbow. Say Hi from me to Kevin if you see him again.
DeleteYou raise a very interesting question there -
Hmmm. Well I would say, and I am just guessing, that you may have thought that you had found your ikigai but then found you were mistaken- with a conviction that is hard to understand. I think I had that with my insight in the train when I commuted to London.
I am not sure that Kevin and I ever really shared the same ikigai. We did share a common goal in completing an Ironman, though I would say for Kevin it was never about completing but always about competing an Ironman and they are different, very different. I wanted to prove I could do it, my main competitor was myself. You may need to check this with Kevin but his finish was never in question . He races to place in his age group and will drop out if he is having a bad race.
So we had may be a common goal - to race in the same race, but in different way and for different reasons. He has gone from strength to strength - I just had to prove I could do it, I did it and I walked (limped) away.
Througout that I never stopped my love or lost my love of teaching, I would say.
That is my perspective anyway.