Sweet Spots

Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life

by Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles (2017)

ISBN: 9780143130727

Reviewed by Douglas Balzer

Only staying active will make you want to live a hundred years. – Japanese Proverb

The timeless questions – What is the meaning of my life? Is the point to live longer, should I seek a higher purpose? Why do some people know what they want and have a passion for life, while others languish in confusion?

Garcia and Miralles examine these questions in light of the Japanese philosophy of life called Ikigai. The rough translation of the Japanese idea of Ikigai is “the happiness of always  being busy.” Together the authors examine this way of life that has contributed to the longevity of the people of Okinawa Japan. Okinawa is noted for having a level of extraordinary longevity amongst its population. Who isn’t interested in learning about the secrets of living longer and happier from a group of people who experience it? The Okinawans are onto something, and we can all learn from them.

In the United States, people find themselves trapped in the never-ending need to do everything faster, better, and harder. Finding Ikigai will help us slow down and enjoy life more. Also, identifying your life’s purpose will help you live longer, better, and happier, as well.

Ready to learn how to live longer, healthier, and happier? Here are just three of the lessons I learned from Ikigai.

First, if you want to be happy and live longer, discover your Ikigai, or reason to wake up in the morning.

Ikigai, ‘iki’ which means life, and ‘gai,’ or value. Finding your own Ikigai can be as simple as asking four basic questions:

What are your strengths?

What does the world need?

What are your passions?

What can you earn a living doing?

Your Ikigai might take you a short time to find, or it could take much longer. If you see it, however, you may realize that you never want or need to retire, which would give you plenty of time to identify your reason to live. Aside from being made up by the Germans, retirement is associated with an increased risk for many health problems. Searching out your Ikigai is the perfect way to never retire and thus avoid deteriorating faster in your old age.

Now, your Ikigai doesn’t have to be connected to your job. Your purpose may come from a hobby or your family relationships. Do whatever you find gets you up in the morning, just make sure that you never give it up. Okinawans forced into retirement continue to stay active with their hobbies and in their community, which helps them live longer. Research has shown the elderly people of Okinawa have remarkably lower rates of dementia and heart disease as a result of their purpose and activity level.

Second, Okinawan elders know a thing or two about wellbeing, and we should follow their advice if we want to live as long as they do.

Seniors have so much wisdom to share with the world from their years of experience. Those of us that are young might sometimes pretend like we know everything, but we should learn a thing or two about life from the generations before us.

One tip from Okinawan centenarians is to worry as little as possible. It helps to slow down, take your time, and realize that you don’t have to have it all figured out right away. Anxiety has a myriad of adverse health effects. Focus on enjoying life for what you have, instead of being afraid of what might go wrong. A great way to do this is to connect with everyone around you, even strangers.

Okinawan seniors suggest smiling and having an open-heart towards everybody you meet. Your friendliness will help you develop many friendships throughout life. They also recommend maintaining those relationships as well. When you become a grandparent your replacement of worry with friends may also help your grandchildren visit more often. Japanese centenarians also endorse eating healthy, waking up early, and making sure you have enough movement throughout your day.

Third, a key component of staying healthy is to keep moving throughout the day, no matter how little.

Residents of Okinawa suggest that you don’t always need to play a sport or go running to be healthy. Longevity and health are more about finding simple, consistent ways to move more through the day. Intensity may deter consistency, so Okinawans strive for simplicity in their forms of exercise. A walk around the neighborhood, day in the garden, or singing karaoke are just a few simple ways they maintain movement frequently.

Radio Taiso, which was once broadcast on the radio, is a typical Japanese exercise habit that has been around for years. Large groups of Japanese would tune into the radio station and listen to directions for how to exercise. In the present day, most watch online or on the television, but the practice still continues throughout the day in Japan. With simple exercises, like lifting your arms above your head and bringing them down again, Radio Taiso is an easy to repeat form of exercise for the Japanese.

Even without Radio Taiso, you can find ways to add small, consistent amounts of movement

in your day. Ikigai is an incredible concept that can benefit many people. Whether you feel stuck in your job, want to live longer, or just desire a deeper level of happiness and meaning, finding your reason to live will help you.

Reappearing Church: The Hope for Renewal in the Rise of Our Post-Christian Culture

Mark Sayers

–Review by Landrum P. Leavell III, Th.D.

          Full disclosure: I love Mark Sayers. I’ve read most of his books: The Vertical Self, Disappearing Church, Strange Days, The Road Trip That Changed the World, and Facing Leviathan. An Aussie, Mark has an incredible interest in and take on culture in the West. He doesn’t write from a lofty perch: “For well over a decade I have interpreted and recorded our post-Christian moment, all while pastoring in the grit and grind of secular soil.” (193) Senior leader of Red Church in Melbourne, Sayers also cohosts This Cultural Moment podcast with John Mark Comer.

          Obviously, the book is about renewal. “We will not experience renewal by following the same patterns of life and ministry that are not delivering renewal.” Seems like a “duh,” but how many churches, denominations, and individuals daily incarnate the definition of insanity…? This book is not about getting more information but reading to be transformed, to join God in His great renewal project.

Sayers cites Douglas Hyde, who came to Christ and in 1948 left the British Communist Party yet was shocked at what he saw when he entered the church. He was astounded that those with numbers and truth on their side were weighed down with thoughts that they were a small minority taking on a big majority. “The very concept was wrong. Psychologically it was calamitous.” Sayers’ comment? “One person’s beleaguered minority is another’s dedicated, committed core. It’s all a matter of perspective.” (12)

Sayers takes on the secularist renewal myth: “The average Westerner processes religion through a crude, street-level model of secularism that is assumed but rarely analyzed…. This model presumes that with the right conditions and influences, humans are perfectible and that a kind of human utopia is possible.” (20-21) Everyone, both left and right, is addicted to progress and assume that specific policies can lead to a free, fair, and prosperous future, thus assuming the progress model. But the world we were promised has not arrived, nor has the progress. We are seeing a return to tribalism, a growth in economic inequality, and social divisions expanding. “Post-Christianity is experiencing a crisis of doubt over the prospects of its own program of renewal.” (28) Ironically, migration is reintroducing faith into the secular bloodstream. With the high fertility rates among migrants, the secular gains of the West could be lost.

Sayers give helpful definitions to words that have been used interchangeably. Renewal—“The refreshment, release, and advancement that individuals, groups, churches, and cultures experience when they are realigned with God’s presence. The resumption of our God-given purpose to partner with God fully, participating in His plan to flood the world with His presence.” Revival—“When renewal occurs on a large scale, bringing significant advancement, growth, and kingdom fruit to a city, people group, movement, region, or nations. Revival is renewal gone viral.” God has been in the renewal business since the Fall. Everyone knows something is wrong in the world. We want something better for tomorrow. “We either yearn for renewal of lament its absence.” (33)

Renewal is God’s tool to move history to His ends, and while God leads in the dance of renewal, we must be good partners. “God chooses when, where, and whom He will renew. Yet we can prepare for His coming.” (35) Following God’s pattern is not a guaranteed formula for revival. Some revivals take years. Small groups of Christians began to pray for the city of Melbourne in the late 1850s, yet the breakthrough didn’t occur until fifty years later in 1902. It’s all on God’s timetable.

The essential design from examining the history of revivals, the biblical basis, and the literature on renewal gives a process of “God’s desire to renew us and our life systems, to use His presence to align us with His purposes, and to release us into our God-given mandate for which He created us.” The four stages through which we progress are Holy Discontent, which leads into Preparation, which then sets us up for the posture of Contending, which then moves into the formation of Patterns that center our lives around God’s presence. (39-40)

Crisis can be a gateway to renewal, “the silver lining to be found in dark clouds.” (45) Often it’s good when the ground beneath us moves. Cultural transition gives us a new environment. We need spiritual lenses to discover how transition opens up all kinds of new possibilities. “Faith has not slowly ebbed away during the centuries. Instead, renewal is replaced by stagnation, which mutates into decline, and which eventually returns to renewal.” (49)

“The secularist-progressive creed is looking weaker than it initially appeared. The gaps between its promises and reality are widening. Its contradictions are being revealed in increasingly plain sight… Our cultural crises show us the consequences of what happens when we try and take over the controls of the world.” (50-51) Looking back, Lesslie Newbigin saw these realities of crisis caused by secularism in the 1960s. God allows cultural crises to drive us back to Him. Clinging to the status quo is to plug into the anti-renewal machine. The church in the West is at a renew or decline moment.

Transition and dissatisfaction are companions. We move from dissatisfaction to holy discontent. “As the gap between what our culture promises and what is delivers grows wider, its failures create openings for the gospel. Idols are shown for what they are—new potentials open up for God to move again.” (56) Sayers has joined a number of others who have paid attention to our “anxious culture.” He writes about fostering peaceful presence in the age of outrage and radical individualism. After all, we are deeply connected at an emotional level to others. Anxiety is highly infectious, and our Western system has become emotionally feverish. Helpfully addressing emotional regression in our culture, he also directs our sights: “Live with a peaceful presence in an anxious system, and you will become a healing agent of renewal.” (75)

Coming back to discontent and dissatisfaction, he reiterates that we must reach the point where we make a choice to no longer tolerate our current state of being. We turn our holy discontent upon ourselves. “We are yet to see humans fully transformed by God, and won’t till heaven. Therefore we are limited by a lack of imagination of what we can be in Christ—and we make this lack of imagination authoritative.” (127)

The chapter From Consuming to Contending was excellent, speaking of the sacrificial, risk-taking, responsibility-embracing posture of renewal. He moves then to Repatterning for Renewal, how we need to rebuild our patterns. “The taking up of renewal patterns, the adoption of a contending posture, the seeking of the presence, all come together to offer a renewed purpose for the church, which is embodied by the remnant.”(166) And, there’s more. There is a Weekly Group Framework—Building a Remnant, in the appendix to further the discussion.

This book covers a lot of ground: culture, systems, personal and corporate patterns, meaninglessness and freedom, outrage and individualism, hot orthodoxy and vital Christianity, small groups, form and fire. It is worth your time. If you haven’t read Sayers, saddle up and then catch up.

You’re welcome.