Ikigai

The Hundreds of Reasons You Wake Up in the Morning

Ikigai is a Japanese concept often translated as "a reason for being" or "the reason you wake up in the morning." I love concepts like this because English often requires an entire paragraph to explain what another culture can communicate in a single word.

For years, I thought ikigai was something you found.

I imagined it waiting for me somewhere in the distance, hidden behind a promotion, a big goal, a dream house, a successful business, or some future version of myself that had finally figured everything out. Like many ambitious people, I spent much of my life chasing milestones. And to be fair, many of them were worth chasing. The problem wasn't the goals themselves. The problem was believing that purpose lived on the other side of them.

Then life surprised me. Not with some grand revelation, but with ordinary moments. Standing barefoot in the kitchen making dinner. Watching the people I love gather around a table. Hearing laughter drift in from another room. Holding a sleepy child after a long day. Sitting with friends long after the meal was over because nobody was quite ready to leave. The moments that ultimately felt the most meaningful were rarely the ones I could frame on a wall or add to a résumé. They were the ones that reminded me what all the striving was for in the first place.

What I slowly realized is that purpose isn't always found, sometimes it's cultivated.

Sometimes ikigai isn't a destination at all. It's a collection of reasons: a reason to care, a reason to contribute, a reason to keep going when things are difficult, a reason to get out of bed even when you're tired. We often talk about purpose as though it arrives all at once, like a lightning bolt. But more often it reveals itself slowly, through the people, places, and practices that continue calling us back day after day.

For me, many of those reasons are people. The family I get to love. The friendships I get to nurture. The communities I get to serve. The stories I get to tell. The meals I get to share. The work I get to do. Not because any one of those things defines me, but because together they create a life that feels meaningful. They remind me that purpose isn't necessarily one thing. It can be many things woven together into a life that feels aligned with who you are and how you want to show up in the world.

I think we put far too much pressure on ourselves to discover a singular purpose, as if there is one perfect calling and if we miss it, we've somehow failed.

But what if purpose is much simpler than that? What if your ikigai is already hiding in plain sight? What if it lives in the people who count on you, the work that energizes you, the traditions you preserve, the problems you enjoy solving, and the moments that make you lose track of time? What if purpose is less about finding yourself and more about paying attention to what already makes you feel alive?

This work exists because food has always been one of those things for me. Not just the recipes themselves, but what happens around them. The conversations. The traditions. The celebrations. The comfort. The connection. Food has a remarkable ability to bring people together, to turn ordinary evenings into memories and simple meals into stories that get passed from one generation to the next. Some of the most meaningful moments of my life have happened around a table, sharing a meal with people I love.

And maybe that's the real gift of ikigai: Not that it gives us a single reason to wake up in the morning, but that it teaches us to recognize the hundreds of reasons that were there all along.

The smell of coffee brewing before sunrise. A family recipe scribbled onto an index card. A conversation that stretches long after dessert. A friend who calls at exactly the right moment. A child reaching for your hand. A meal shared with people you love.

Those moments may seem small while they're happening. But together, they become a life.

What comes up for you as we explore ikigai from this angle?