Do I need to know my “whys”?

This is something I just read recently and wish I had known a long time ago. It just came to me as I was looking at my news-feed and it got my immediate attention. It’s pretty essential, as it deals with our purpose in life. 

Some research claims that when we know why we wake up in the morning and have a purpose in our day-to-day life, we can add up to seven years to our life expectancy. I’ll take this! 

There’s a Japanese concept called Ikigai that encourages us to find our personal calling or purpose. It’s recommended that we ask ourselves four questions and try to find where these answers intersect: 

•  What do I love? (Passion) Skiing, I guess 
• What am I good at? (Profession) Writing might be one of my forte 
• What does the world need? (Mission) I wish for more peace and tranquility 
• What can I be compensated for? (Vocation) Well, I’ll do it for free! 

When I look at these conflicting relationships that must be tied together, I’d tend to say that it would make sense to merge passion, profession and remuneration (which I was lucky enough to do), and that in all cases the "mission" part sits in a bit of limbo (and did not work at all in my case) and that it is not easy to create enough "Ikigai" space. 

Therein seems to lie all the difficulty, well, we can always try, but it won’t be easy! I am told that it requires plenty of work, so I wonder if it is really worth my while to engage in this personal quest for an Ikigai that’s worth it. I think I will think about it a little more before taking the plunge!