“Nobody knows what they’re going to do with their *entire life.* Nobody… Having one giant purpose that you strive toward forever isn’t the goal. What is? An ikigai. A current aim. A reason to get out of bed in the morning. Retirement is a broken concept. It is based on three assumptions that aren’t true: that we enjoy doing nothing instead of being productive, that we can afford to live well while earning no money for decades, and that we can afford to pay others to earn no money for decades.” ~ Neil Pasricha – The Happiness Equation.

In North America while we think of retirement as a golden age of putting greens, staring at the clouds, and cottage decks. Guess what they call retirement in Okinawa? They don’t! There is no word for retirement for Okinawan’s. But there is a word that drives this culture – Ikigai (Icky-guy). It is the reason that I get out of bed everyday. It is the one thing that drives you the most at this stage of life. Okinawans live longer than most other cultures. They out live Americans by 7 heathy years!

Otto von Bismarck instituted mandatory retirement at age 65 in Germany in 1889. He wanted to free up jobs for younger people and guess what the average life expectancy was at that time? 67. Then, in the 20th century, other countries started instituting a mandatory retirement at the arbitrary age of 65 and—get this—marketing gurus spent a ton of money CONVINCING us that leisure was awesome, work was awful, and, well, here we are.

Issac Newton’s first Law of Physics says that a body in motion tends to stay in motion until acted upon by a larger force. Here is a daily principle to learn, “It’s easier to act yourself into a new way of thinking than to think yourself into a new way of acting.” Now go forward. Live out your Ikigai today!