Happiness for Cynics podcast
Have you ever wondered if there was more to life? Are you looking for more passion and purpose? Look no further than the Japanese secret to a long and happy life: Ikigai.
Ikigai comes from the people in the small Japanese community of Okinawa, a remote island with a remarkably high number of centenarians (people over 100 years old). IIkigai has also been proven to be a major factor not only in their longevity but also their happiness.
Episode notes
In this episode we spoke about how many low income earners might not have much choice in the jobs they perform – Marie pulled a number out of thin air to make a point (30%). To ensure we don’t get angry emails, and to set the record straight, this ABC news article from last year can give you’re the real stats. In short, the average Aussie (median income) is $48,360 before tax, according to a report released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and many people below the median struggle to pay bills and meet healthcare needs.
Transcript
M: You’re listening to the podcast happiness for cynics. I’m Marie Skelton, a writer, speaker and expert in change and resiliency, and my co-host is Pete.
P: Hi there. I’m Peter Furness, and I’m a bicycle meander, baking indulgent and non-morning exerciser. Each week we bring you the latest news and research in the field of positive psychology, otherwise known as Happiness.
M: You can find our podcast at MarieSkelton.com, which is a site about major life changes and how to cope with them. The site uses a lot of the research that we talk about here on the podcast and has some really practical tips for bringing happiness and joy into your life.
P: So on to today’s episode, which is all about finding your passion and purpose.
[Happy intro music]
M: So welcome to today’s episode, which is about finding your passion and purpose.
P: Everybody’s gotta have a purpose. There is a song to go with that Marie, ‘Avenue Q’ people look it up.
M: So today we’re talking about having something to do in life, and the reason this is so important is that people who are happy and fulfilled live longer and people who have purpose in their life are more happy and more fulfilled. So you live a better life and the longer life.
P: Absolutely.
M: So, the opposite is also true for people without purpose in their life. And when we say purpose, really, lot of the time for most people, it’s their job.
P: Much of our purpose is lined up in our identity of what our occupation is. Definitely.
M: Absolutely. And that doesn’t mean that it has to be your job, and it only has to be your job. And jobs are taking on a lot different looks and feels nowadays. Definitely a lot more people working from home and the gig economy and services that you can provide online are changing the way that people work, definitely. But for a lot of us, when we talk about purpose, it’s what gets you out of bed in the morning and what you do with the bulk of your hours during the day.
P: But I think some people fall into the trap of not taking charge of that.
M: Absolutely.
P: They’re being led down a path that they think is this’s what I do. But when they actually do the work on themselves, it’s actually know what they want to be doing. That’s possibly what we’re going to talk a little bit more of today.
M: Definitely. And I think this concept of what you want to be doing is pretty new. To be quite frank.
P: Really?
M: Yeah. I don’t think our parents had as much luxury of choice.
P: Yeah, fair enough. They didn’t. They did the solid job. Get a good job. Stick at it. Don’t change jobs. You stay in the same job for 40 years, you stayed with the same company or that sort of stuff. You’re definitely right there. We jump around a lot more and we’re actually encouraged to. I remember sort of hearing from different people saying, I’ve got to move it’s been three years. I’m like ‘Oh, really? Three years and one company. Wow.’
M: Yeah, definitely.
P: You know everybody and the tea lady.
M: I’m one of those. I’m bored now.
[Laughter]
P: Well, that’s the other thing. If, if you’re not having a purpose or you haven’t done the work on finding your purpose, you may find yourself saying, oh I’m really bored with life. Why am I bored with life? This could be a good episode for you people out there that are feeling a little bit stale or a little bit stagnant and wondering ‘Is there a bigger picture?’
M: Yep, definitely. So we’ll look into that in a second. But firstly, I want to, of course [be]cause it’s me, throw some stats in there.
[Laughter] It’s all about the research.
M: Absolutely. But discuss what happens when you have no purpose, and that is such a bad place to be in when you look at the stats. So again, here we go with stats.
So in the US [United States]. Gallup[i] found that the longer you experienced unemployment, the more likely you are to report symptoms of psychological unease, so that can include things like anxiety and depression. Also, they found that one in five people without a job for a year or more report that they have been or are currently undergoing treatment for depression. So one in five people and the rate is about double the rate of depression of those who’ve been without a job for fewer than five weeks. So what that means is, if you’ve got a job, you’re less likely to have depression. If you don’t have a job, you’re more likely to get depressed. And the longer you go without a job, the more your chances of being depressed increases and another way of looking at a major life moment where your purpose might change is retirement.
P: Hhmm. [Sound of agreement]
M: And there’s a study by the London based Institute of Economic Affairs that looked at the likelihood that someone would suffer from clinical depression. And it actually goes up by about 40% after retiring.
P: Very surprising that figure and yet when you think it. I remember when my parents retired, they both retired at the same time and we were all focused on Mum. But what we didn’t realise was it was actually Dad that we had to worry about because Mum made the transition really well. I think because we pushed her to get a hobby. It was like, ‘You’re not going to sit at home and do nothing, so let’s find you something.’ And we forgot about poor old Dad, and it was Dad who actually suffered. He started painting everything yellow.
M: [Laugh]
P: He had some yellow paint, and so everything in the house got painted yellow, the barbecue, the stakes in the garden, the fence.
M: Oh dear..
P: [Laugh], poor Dad.
M: I think that is also a little bit just the way that we’ve expected men to suck it up and move on, and there’s so many great movements out there now about men’s mental health.
P: Mmm, oh definitely. And it’s been, it’s the planning and it’s having the foresight and the forethought to go right ‘I’m retiring in five years. What can I do?’ What can I be a part of? That’s where volunteering comes into it. Our extracurricular activities and if you’ve spent the time during your working life developing strong social connections in those extracurricular activities, albeit sport, church, community groups, all that sort of stuff. That and I think the science would probably back me on this is that that’s going to set you up well for retirement because everything doesn’t stop. I feel sorry for the blokes, particularly in rural areas where men get up and go to work. That’s what they do and then all of a sudden, when they’ve stopped working, there’s nothing to get up for.
M: Absolutely. I’ve been interviewing quite a few people for my book on this topic. So yes, the science does back you up on this.
P: Yay! I was going out on a limb, quoting without looking at research. There we go!
M: Yeah, absolutely. And look that 40% who struggle after retirement. There’s a whole body of research on that, and one of the big things is purpose. And the other big thing that you mentioned, there was those social connections, so important for your retirement years.
P: Which is a nice segway into what we’re going to talk about today-
M: Actually, it is.
P: – Which is the Japanese concept of Ikigai. What is Ikigai, I hear you ask?
I love this explanation we came up with when we were talking about it. It’s a bunch of circles.
[Laughter]
P: It’s bubbles people. It’s all about bubbles. Bubbles, so in English a rough translation for Ikigai is a reason for being and it finds its origins in a little village in Okinawa, which is little island in Japan that has a high, really high number of centenarians, which is people over 100 years of age. We call it a blue zone, the amount of people who are centenarians and have quite a number of them in one location it’s called a Blue Zone and while their age may have been attributed to diet and lifestyle, there is the practise of Ikigai, which has been noted as a major factor not only in their longevity but in their happiness. So we can talk about Ikigai being, it’s a tool. It’s a way of doing some work. It’s a series of questions that you can ask yourself that look at the four major components of… and I’ll go through these if I can.
- What you love;
- What you’re good at;
- What you can get paid for; and
- What the world needs.
So we’re looking at passion, your mission, your profession and your vocation and that lovely little sweet spot where all those four elements tie in is what your Ikigai is. The reason you get up in the morning, it’s the reason you wake up and go ‘today I’m doing this because this is what I do.’
M: And I, I think that every year 11 student should have to do this exercise.
P: Oh, I agree. Definitely.
M: Right, because I remember filling in a bunch of circles A, B, C or D. Or would you prefer to be a gardener or an astrophysicist?
P: [Laugh]
M: And, and I said Gardner there, because it’s top of mind because Gardner came back as something I should consider as a career choice.
P: Oh, really?
M: Yes, anyway.
P: Surprising considering you can’t keep a herb alive.
M: I can’t, at all. I just have to look at a plant and it dies.
P: [Laugh]
M: Seriously.
P: Your terrariums doing okay.
M: I haven’t killed the plants that live in a desert? Yeah, Thanks.
P: [Laugh]
M: But I love that this considers not only the realities of what you’ll get paid for.
P: Yes.
M: But also what you’re good at and what you love. And I don’t think that enough emphasis is put on finding a way to get paid for what you’re good at and what you love. We, at school are taught more here are the things that you need to learn, and it doesn’t matter if you’re good at them, you’ve got to work harder.
P: Oh, yes. The markers, yeah.
M: And it doesn’t matter if you love them. That just wasn’t a factor at all. But this is about finding what, what sparks you.
P: Yeah.
M: And then how you can make a career out of that. The other thing that I will say though, is so many of us don’t do what we love and what we’re good at or even what the world needs on a daily basis. We do what we can get paid for.
P: Exactly. We put too much emphasis on one element of the off the four. And I think that that’s something that we could all do a little bit. This’s the thing about doing these exercises, it makes you look at the process of what you should be doing in a much more, I’m going to say spherical, and you’re probably going to pull me up on that one Marie, it’s a more rounded perspective of looking at it. It’s not just looking at what can I get the most amount of money for and what is my profession going to be according to how much money I can generate? That’s not the way to make this decision. And that’s what I like about the Japanese principle is it’s a much more rounded, much more spherical perception of coming at what, what choice should I be making?
M: I absolutely agree with you. The other side of what I was saying, though, is that for a lot of us, we don’t have that choice. You have to solely look at what can I get paid for?
P: Okay. Yep, true.
M: So for a large portion of the population, I think that you take what you can get.
P: That’s an interesting one. I guess I wasn’t part of that large portion, and it’s funny, I was watching Gardening Australia recently.
M: As you do Peter [laugh].
P: It’s a Covid[19] thing. It’s gotten me into gardening Australia. I actually love it, but they were interviewing this, this couple that we’re doing a garden and he was a sculptor and she was an artist and forgive me for, for being a little bit coy here, but sculptors and artists and those people, we don’t make choices according to money. We’re like, I’m going to go and be a plant specialist. They take that passion side, and that’s what they run with. They don’t go with what can I generate my income with.
M: And I think that’s such a blessed and privileged position.
P: It is a privilege definitely.
M: Yes, I guess what I’m saying here or what I’m trying to get at is that some of us have a reality. That means they have to work 60 hours in a minimum wage job in order to pay the bills and provide food for the family, right.
P: Yeah, well we all have to pay the bills and so forth.
M: But what I’m trying to say here is that you can do that with passion. So you’ve mentioned it before Pete. And I worked retail through university. You can bring a passion to living to a retail job that really doesn’t excite you. I worked in a muffin shop for the longest time.
P: [Laugh]
M: It was not lighting my fire, let me tell you that. But I had some of the best memories from great customers, good colleagues, lots of laughs. And I just don’t want this to be inaccessible to the, I’m going to pull a number out of whatever, you know, the 30% of Australians who have to take what jobs are available and who don’t have the luxury or the privilege that we have off choosing from a wide range of different career options or vocations.
P: Okay, so if we if we if we look at that 30% and we look at the concept of Ikigai, I actually believe that this process of going through this tool and using this tool is a way to unlock maybe some of the passion and unlock some of those other elements that does help you to bring purpose and fulfilment to a role that you’re really not wanting to do.
M: Absolutely and then the other thing is again. It doesn’t have to be your job. So if you find that your passion is an art and you cannot make a living out of your art.
P: So many of us can’t.
M: Then how do you bring your passion for art into your life in another way?
P: And that’s, that’s the, that’s the key. That’s the golden little .. nugget of jewel right there.
M: Absolutely. Well, good. I think we’re finally getting to the same point here.
P: It just took us a little round about.
M: Ha, Ha, I, I just don’t want to forget that I feel like we’re really quite privileged when it comes down to it to have the choice, and a lot of people don’t. But that doesn’t mean that this isn’t accessible for them as well.
So if we come back to the older generations in Okinawa and the concept of Ikigai, this is baked into the way that this society works. It’s really worth having a look online. If you haven’t looked at this before.
So they, they put the principles into practice. The community is really geared to activities that bring joy, and, like dancing and singing and giving back to the community and doing all these things in social ways as well. Not, not by yourself. And the impacts are huge.
P: Yeah, it’s a supported environment. If you, if you like it, it’s part of the culture.
M: Exactly.
P: It’s part of the infrastructure that’s already there. It’s geared towards this practise and it’s proven, it’s proven to be effective. As we can see, it’s a blue zone.
M: Yep, all right. So do we have any tips?
P: We do [laugh]. I’m going to let you go with those ones Marie, to start off with.
M: All right, I’ll go.
The first step to changing your life… That’s huge!
P: OH, that’s a massive leap into the unknown there.
M: [Laugh]
P: Just dive right in!
M: First step is to understand yourself better.
P: That’s very Jungian[ii] thing isn’t it?
M: That’s not the cynical Marie that I’m used to being is it?
P: [Laugh] maybe you’ve gone through this process already Marie. You’ve done the work and it’s all about working. This doesn’t happen, magically. And I think that’s one of the points I do want to make. I’m going jump in here Muz. This stuff is hard. It’s hard yakka. You can’t just cruise along and expect it’ll just, to come through. It’s got to come up. You’ve got to actually go and do the work and do the exercise. And this is what this tool is great for its. It’s asking the right questions, so that you do sit down and go right ‘What is my purpose?’
M: Absolutely. So go online. Have a look for Ikigai, it’s I-k-i-g-a-i, and you’ll see the circles that Pete was talking about with the four elements of Ikigai.
And the first step is to write down all the things that you love, that you’re good at, that you can get paid for and that the world needs. And next, once you’ve written down all of those things, you need to set some goals. So once you’ve worked out where the intersection of all those four things lies best, might not be perfect. You might not find one thing that fits right in the intersection of it all-
P: I think that’s really important to keep in mind it doesn’t have to be perfect. Just go with it. Have a little faith.
M: – but might find something that meets three of those four.
P: Exactly.
M: So once you’ve got that, knowledge without action is useless. So to reach your goals, you need to change your behaviour, which means you need to change your habits. And there’s a great book that is an international bestseller about changing habits, and it’s James Clear’s, ‘Atomic Habits’. So pick up that book, and in that book he talks about how and, and it’s a proverb that’s been around for centuries. You know, ‘the journey of 1000 miles starts with one step.’ And taking one step is so easy to take. That small, tiny habit that you start adds up over a lifetime to be massive.
P: Starts the ripples.
M: So take the time to do the brainstorming and the self-reflection, and then you’ve got to put into action.
P: And this might be, I’ve got a little list here Marie from two people who have written the book on Ikigai basically, they are..
M: Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles.
P: Well done Marie, was a nice pick up there. I just dropped the mike. So these guys are well known Western authors of the Ikigai method and How to Find Your Ikigai, the Japanese practise and these steps all are pretty easy steps to sort of follow to keep you along the lines of maintaining that Ikigai, because Ikigai is not a static concept, it’s, it’s an ever changing concept. Our purpose in life changes from when we’re 17 to when we’re 45. We don’t have the same purpose. So this is not something that you do once, and you just keep following that path blindly. It’s something to revisit every now and then, so that you move along with your life changes and with your systems that are in process and buying a house and having Children. Your, your needs change your, your purpose changes.
So this is something to revisit all the time.
M: All right, so you’ve got 10 steps don’t you Pete?
P: I do, Thanks to Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles, who wrote the book on Ikigai. The 10 steps include:
- Staying active, not retiring.
- Leave urgency behind and adopt a slower pace of life. Chill out people.
- Only eat until you are 80% full. I like that one it’s such a conceptual one.
- Surround yourself with good friends. Social connections.
- Get in shape through daily gentle exercise. That’s that lovely idea of maintaining gentle exercise and not hitting the intensity all the time, because is a negative influence on our longevity.
- Smile and acknowledge the people around you. See the people when they’re in front of you.
- Reconnecting with nature. Forest bathing, I keep coming back to it. It’s a real thing, look it up.
- Give thanks to anything that brightens your day and makes you feel alive. This comes back to what we’re talking about, about self-care being church for non-believers. It’s another one of our episodes. M: And Gratefulness. P: Gratefulness definitely.
- Live in the moment. Mindfulness. And then the last one.
- Follow your Ikigai.
M: All right. I think that’s a good place to stop. Thanks for joining us this week. We’ll see you next week.
P: Stay happy people.
[Happy Exit Music]
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[i] Gallup, Inc. is an American analytics and advisory company based in Washington, D.C. Founded by George Gallup in 1935, the company became known for its public opinion polls conducted worldwide.
[ii] Jungian – In reference to Carl Jung. Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung’s work was influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philosophy, and religious studies.
