Hector Garcia and his writing partner traveled to Okinawa, a tiny island south of mainland Japan (and immortalized in Western culture by the great Mr. Miyagi of the Karate Kid movie series, perhaps the most redeeming quality of the entire franchise.) 

They wanted to find out what made these folks feel so young, yet getting so old. Okinawa is one of the 5 Blue Zonesidentified by Dan Buettner. BTW there's a terrific Netflix series about Blue Zones you should check out in the event you're looking for something to watch with more substance than Love Actually. 

What Hector and co. found is that folks in Okinawa never actually retire. They're always active, doing something productive, adding real value to their community. 

Here in the West, we have this concept of "retirement" wherein we quit the job we've done during our "productive" years; and then do nothing of real value. You go on vacations, maybe take up a hobby of some sort, but it's generally understood that once you reach a certain (highly arbitrary) age, you cease to be a person of value in the world.

The Okinawans don't see it that way, nor do Westerners who have a clearly defined Ikigai for that matter.

While it may be true that we need to take on lesser responsibilities as we age, perhaps even leave a certain job with physical and mental demands we're no longer capable of handling, we shun the idea that we forsake our Ikigai so we can tinker with classic cars.

A recent guest on my Trumpet Dynamics podcast, Jim Olcott, shocked me when he told me he's just a few months shy of 80 years old. He's still active arranging and recording pieces, leading his trumpet ensemble in the Twin Cities, and is one heck of a trumpet player. 

He admitted he can't quite hit the high notes he could 20 years ago, but does it detract from the sense of purpose and joy he derives from his work? Not one bit.

That is Ikigai. I imagine Jim will be active with his work until he's well into his 90's. Oh, and I also attended one of Jim's ensemble rehearsals recently. One of the guys there is actually in his 90's. Does he have the chops he did when he was playing in the Minnesota Orchestra until 25 years ago? Of course not. But I would guess continuing to play trumpet is that gentleman practicing his Ikigai, albeit in a greatly reduced manner from his prime.

Ikigai doesn't begin at retirement

I've known lots of people who work a job that doesn't suit their Ikigai, leaving them deeply unfulfilled their entire lives. They rationalize it by saying, "When I retire, then I'll do what I want to do with my life." 

While it is sound thinking to work a job you don't necessarily like, or that doesn't even suit your Ikigai in order to make ends meet, to think you're going to do what you really want to do when you "retire" seems like a proposition doomed to fail.

For one thing, even if you do reach that completely arbitrary age of "retirement", where exactly is one's frame of mind? It is thoroughly beat down into submission to "the man".

I'm not 65 years old, so I can't say this from experience, but I would imagine a person who's that age and has spent their entire adult life setting aside any notion of having a real Ikigai in their life is not prone to suddenly change their mindset when they leave their job. 

If anything, it seems to me their thought patterns are so engrained in that beat down state, it would be rather difficult to change their ways.

But miracles do happen. Our very existence on this earth is a miracle in its own right; let's not be so quick to dismiss a notion because a writer is in a particular mood on a particular day.

**I'll be sharing more about Ikigai in future emails, and then recording them all into one podcast on the Energeia.LIVE podcast feed. If you want to listen to the few episodes on the feed I've published thus far, you can listen at this link: https://energeia.live

And if you happened to miss previous emails in this series, you can read them here: https://energeia.live/category/ikigai/