Stop Putting “Ikigai” in Corporate PowerPoints
I work for a Japanese company. I’ve studied Japanese arts for years. My wife lived in Tokyo for nearly a decade and speaks the language, and through her I have in‑laws there. I’m not fluent, and I haven’t lived there, but I do have a deeper-than-average sense of the culture. So when I see Japanese concepts flattened into corporate buzzwords, I cringe hard. And “ikigai” is one of the worst offenders.
Yes, ikigai literally translates to “reason for living,” but that doesn’t mean it belongs in a slide deck about optimizing your potential. The Westernized four‑circle Venn diagram — passion, mission, vocation, profession — is catchy, but it has almost nothing to do with the Japanese idea.
Ikigai is quiet. Personal. Often small. It’s the thing that brings you joy and gives your life texture. It’s not a product or profit center. It’s not a decision matrix. And it’s certainly not something you can “unlock” by attending a corporate training webinar.
If you want to align your work with your core values, that’s great — and it can be a useful exercise... within very clear limits. But let’s be honest: most of us are being paid to fulfill someone else’s dreams, not our own. That’s the nature of employment. There can be dignity in that, especially for the sacrifice you make for your family — but that’s not ikigai.
Your ikigai lives somewhere else. It's in your routines, your relationships, in the things you do because they matter to you.
Please, let's retire the Venn diagram and let ikigai be what it actually is: a private, human reason to get up in the morning — not corporate KPI dressed in kanji.