Ikigai

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HECTOR GARCIA & FRANCESC MIRALLES
Hector Garcia is a Spanish software engineer who moved to Japan in his late twenties and simply never left. He's been living in Tokyo for over fifteen years and runs a popular blog under his Japanese pen name, Kirai. He writes about Japanese culture, technology, and life in a way that feels like a friend explaining something they genuinely love. Outside of writing, he's been deeply fascinated with the intersection of Eastern philosophy and modern science.

Francesc Miralles is a Barcelona-based author with over twenty books to his name — fiction, self-help, philosophy. He's won awards for his novels and has translated works of psychology and spirituality for Spanish audiences. He's the kind of writer who moves easily between different genres and seems to be genuinely curious about everything.

The two met through a mutual interest in Japan and longevity, had a long dinner in Tokyo, and realized they were both obsessed with the same question — why do people in certain parts of Japan live so long and seem so happy doing it? I think this was enough about them. Now let's talk a little bit about the book Ikigai.

Ikigai is a short Japanese philosophy book that explores the concept of "reason for being" — the thing that makes you want to get out of bed every morning. The authors spent time in Okinawa, one of the world's Blue Zones where people routinely live past 100, and tried to understand what these people have that the rest of us don't. It's a quick read, almost deceptively slim, but it leaves you with a lot to sit with.

Here are some things I think are worth sharing:

1. The Okinawans they interviewed don't really have a word for retirement. They just keep doing the thing they love until they physically can't. One 102-year-old man still practiced martial arts every morning. I found that both inspiring and a little unsettling — in a good way.
2. Ikigai isn't your job or your passion or your "calling." It's much smaller than that. It could be your morning coffee, your garden, your grandchildren. The authors are very clear that ikigai doesn't have to be grand. That made me think about how much pressure we put on finding some big life purpose when the real thing might already be sitting in front of us.
3. There's a section on flow — that state where you're so absorbed in something that you lose track of time. The book connects this directly to ikigai and suggests that activities that put you in flow are usually pointing toward your reason for being. I couldn't stop thinking about the last time I was genuinely in flow and what that says about me.
4. The concept of "hara hachi bu" — eat until you're 80% full. It sounds simple but it's apparently deeply practiced in Okinawa. They eat slowly, pay attention, and stop before they're stuffed. The whole chapter on diet and longevity was surprisingly engaging for what is technically a philosophy book.
5. The book introduces wabi-sabi — finding beauty in imperfection and impermanence — alongside ikigai. The two ideas fit together well. If ikigai is about finding your reason to live, wabi-sabi is about making peace with the fact that nothing lasts. Together they feel like a quiet but complete philosophy.
6. It's a short book. Under 200 pages. Some readers find it too thin — they want more depth. I actually liked the brevity. It felt like the book itself was practicing what it preached: don't overcomplicate things, just share what matters.

Here are some lines I really liked from the book:

"Our ikigai is different for all of us, but one thing we have in common is that we are all searching for meaning."

"Our ikigai is different for all of us, but one thing we have in common is that we are all searching for meaning."

— Ikigai

"We don't create the meaning of our life, as Sartre claimed — we discover it."

"We don't create the meaning of our life, as Sartre claimed — we discover it."

— Ikigai

"Only staying active will make you want to live a hundred years."

"Only staying active will make you want to live a hundred years."

— Ikigai

Buy the book → Buy on Amazon