Created by Emmy van Deurzen, found in Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 Deed

I do wish I’d known about the concept of Ikigai when I was younger. It relates to having a sense of purpose or a reason for living. There are countless books on it, and probably a gazillion internet quizzes.

These days, it’s often described as the intersection of what you love, what you’re good at, what you can get paid for, and what the world needs. If you can figure out a niche for yourself there in the middle of that Venn diagram, you’re golden. And incredibly lucky.

I have no trouble discovering things that are in overlapping areas above, including the Passion area, and even an overlap of Profession and Vocation, but nothing that includes all four aspects at the same time. There is very little out there that I love that I can also get paid for. So I usually just do things that I’m good at, that sometimes the world needs, that I can get paid for, and enjoy the things I love that I’m good at, or that the world needs separately. Perhaps my purpose in life just isn’t a unified thing, but disjointed, where I can gain pleasure and satisfaction in some areas and make more than a tiny sum of money in others. But it doesn’t give me a sense of purpose or joy to have it all separate like that.

I hope one day to be able to combine all four of these together, but I haven’t made it to that spot yet.

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