JAPANESE PROVERB
Only staying active will make you want to live a hundred years.
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IKIGAI
Why do some people know what they want and have a passion for life, while others languish in confusion?
"At some point in our conversation, the mysterious word ikigai came up. This Japanese concept, which translates roughly as "the happiness of always being busy," is like logotherapy, but it goes a step beyond. It also seems to be one way of explaining the extraordinary longevity of the Japanese, especially on the island of Okinawa, where there are 24.55 people over the age of 100 for every 100,000 inhabitants—far more than the global average."
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Héctor García is a citizen of Japan, where he has lived for over a decade, and of Spain, where he was born. He is the author of several books about Japanese culture, including two worldwide bestsellers, A Geek in Japan and Ikigai. A former software engineer, he worked at CERN in Switzerland before moving to Japan.
Francesc Miralles is an award-winning and internationally bestselling author of books about how to live well, together with the novels Love in Small Letters and Wabi-Sabi. Alongside Héctor García, he was welcomed to Okinawa in Japan, where the inhabitants live for longer than in any other place in the world. There they had the chance to interview more than a hundred villagers about their philosophy for a long and happy life.