Excerpt: What is Ikigai? Often translated as “a reason for being,” it’s a concept that—when fully understood—can add years and joy to your life…
“My secret to a long life is always saying to myself, ‘Slow down,’ and ‘Relax.’ You live much longer if you’re not in a hurry.”
Unknown, via Ikigai (Page 116)
“Only staying active will make you want to live a hundred years.”
Japanese proverb, via Ikigai
Book Overview: According to the Japanese, everyone has an ikigai—a reason for living. And according to the residents of the Japanese village with the world’s longest-living people, finding it is the key to a happier and longer life. Having a strong sense of ikigai—where what you love, what you’re good at, what you can get paid for, and what the world needs all overlap—means that each day is infused with meaning. It’s the reason we get up in the morning. In researching this book, the authors interviewed the residents of the Japanese village with the highest percentage of 100-year-olds—one of the world’s Blue Zones. Ikigai reveals the secrets to their longevity and happiness: how they eat, how they move, how they work, how they foster collaboration and community, and—their best-kept secret—how they find the ikigai that brings satisfaction to their lives. And it provides practical tools to help you discover your own ikigai.
Post(s) Inspired by this Book:
“It almost always happens that lovers become childlike—because love accepts you. It makes no demands on you. Love does not say, ‘Be this, be that.’ Love simply says, ‘Be yourself. You are good as you are. You are beautiful as you are.’ Love accepts you. Suddenly you start dropping your ideals, ‘shoulds,’ personalities. You drop your old skin, and again you become a child. Love makes people young.'”
Osho, Everyday Osho (Page 279)
“The producer of old age is habit: the deathly process of doing the same thing in the same way at the same hour day after day, first from carelessness, then from inclination, at last from cowardice or inertia. Habit is necessary; but it is the habit of having careless habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive… one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.”
Edith Wharton
“You are young in proportion to your flexibility. Watch a small child—so soft, tender, and flexible. As you grow old everything becomes tight, hard, inflexible. But you can remain absolutely young to the very moment of your death if you remain flexible.”
Osho, Everyday Osho (Page 13)
“You get to that place where you are like a favorite old flannel shirt—well worn, faded, thin in places, but so perfectly comfortable you love it more than anything else in the closet. Like that old shirt, you want to feel great. The outside doesn’t matter as much as the texture and touch, all the memories and miles, and, of course, the fact that it still does its job!”
Dick Van Dyke, Keep Moving
“I am a child in search of his inner adult, though the truth is that I’m not searching too hard. I don’t recommend anyone doing so. That is the secret, the one people always ask me about when they see me singing and dancing, whistling my way through the grocery store or doing a soft shoe in the checkout line. They say, ‘Pardon me, Mr. Van Dyke, but you seem so happy. What’s your secret?’ What they really want to know is how I have managed to grow old, even very old, without growing up, and the answer is this: I haven’t grown up. I play. I dance with my inner child. Every day.”
Dick Van Dyke, Keep Moving
“Whatever age you are today, your future self would love to be it. Most people do not consider 65 to be a young age… but when you’re 75, you’d love to rewind to 65 and regain those years. Few people would describe 35 as your youth, but in your mid-50s your mid-30s will seem like the “young you.” Today is a great opportunity, no matter your age. Looking back in a few years, today will seem like the time when you were young and full of potential or the moment when you could have started early or the turning point when you made a choice that benefited your future. The moment in front of you right now is a good one. Make the most of it.”
James Clear, Blog
Excerpt: Morrie Schwartz was dying—and yet had so much left to give. Read our favorite Morrie quotes from Tuesdays With Morrie—the timeless classic.
“The advice shouldn’t be to act your age. It should be to act your spirit. Your age may try to prohibit you from dancing like that, or starting over, or trying something new. But your spirit would never do such a thing. If something feels aligned, your spirit wants you to go for it, whether you’re 15 or 85. Acting your age makes you fit in more, while acting your spirit will indeed cause you to stand out—in a bad way to people who act their age, but in an inspiring way to those who act their spirit. Try acting your spirit from time to time, and you can see for yourself which path makes you feel more alive.”
Light Watkins
“Mitch, it is impossible for the old not to envy the young. But the issue is to accept who you are and revel in that. This is your time to be in your thirties. I had my time to be in my thirties, and now is my time to be seventy-eight. You have to find what’s good and true and beautiful in your life as it is now. Looking back makes you competitive. And, age is not a competitive issue.”
Morrie Schwartz, via Tuesdays With Morrie (Page 120)
“Listen. You should know something. All younger people should know something. If you’re always battling against getting older, you’re always going to be unhappy, because it will happen anyhow.”
Morrie Schwartz, via Tuesdays With Morrie (Page 118)
