Being a keen lover of Japanese culture I end up buying ikigai with lots of enthusiasm and finished reading it within span of 2 days because I was ridiculously got hooked to it.

So here is my take on ikigai.

The book describes everything from top to bottom that is essential for a happy and well being life. In the beginning, the book explains what an ikigai actually is? Well, to broke it down in simpler words it basically is the passion to live life and to continue doing what you really love without age restrictions, also keeping up with healthy life and healthy diet through moderate yet effective exercises and social gatherings.

Author describes that how important it is for Japanese people their ikigai and how they stick to it with so much of passion even after the age of retirement, but the age of retirement simply don't bother Japanese people because the idea simply didn't exist there.

Author of the book described some similar example of people those are so hooked to their ikigai that the age, and the world don't matter to them. He described the artist that was so passionate about sketching that he himself use to draw and sketch and illustrate the drawings without any technical help unlike other good artists in the world and to my amusement he still continues to do this even hos retirement of age. 

The book has described every single detail of life style of Japanese people,  and in such descriptive manner that is even harder to put into words all at once.

The writers describe later in the book the place in the Japan where people live more than 100 years with healthy lifestyle and healthy diet, combat social relationships, and laughing being the centre pillars of their life.

What drive my attention was the lifestyle and diet of people that caters to their longetivity and healthy life. Japanese people observed 2 days of fast in a week and they usually have meals until they are 80 percent full meaning as soon as they feel that they are getting full they stop eating by doing these it make sure the stomach is less and not entirely full and also the energy of the body is less require to digest the food . This also ensures that person will not get obess, will be free of all the cardiovascualr and carcinogenic diseases. Beside this white rice and green tea is the authentic and traditional of Japan and Japanese people consume them on daily basis. They have green tea atleast thrice in a day. Green tea comes with its own set of benefits, and they are enormous to even begin with. 

The most attractive and amusing thing I found in the book was, Japanese embrace the age and welcomes and enjoys the sense of maturity, and lessons it brings. They often admire being old so that you have more experience of life and you can live life with solitude and pride while making least of the least mistakes. The definition of life there is healthy and fun and happiness. Usually they don't prefer going beyond their ikigai. 

This blog was little digressing here and there because the book in itself is so amazing and so wide and so much of different perspective in front of you, it was honestly to sum up whats inside it.  

If you are not big fan of non fictional books just like me, you should definitely give ikigai a shot.