Melody Wilding discussing ikigai:

Like the Danish word hygge, there’s no simple, direct translation into English for the Japanese word ikigai. It roughly means the “thing that you live for” or “the reason for which you get up in the morning.” In a nutshell, it encompasses the idea that happiness in life is about more than money or a fancy job title.

It’s easiest to think about ikiagi [sic] as an intersection, the common ground between:

• What you love
• What you care about
• What the world needs
• What you can get paid for

It’d be very difficult to pinpoint exactly where you fall in the chart above, but it’s a fun exercise to go through.

I wonder if it’s cheating if you have multiple occupations and use the average of your placements to get closer to “ikigai”? Yeah, that’s gotta be cheating.