We all want to succeed in life. One may measure it with different yardstick, nevertheless most of us want success. And in the pursuit of success we may miss life itself. In “Man’s Search for Meaning”, Viktor Frankl says
“Don’t aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen and same holds for success; you have to let it happen by not caring about it”
If success can not itself be a goal, what else should it be? That goal, that ultimate purpose or the meaning of existence itself is not a single answer to a simple question. It’s a journey. Its life itself.
Existential philosophers would say life is inherently meaningless. If we look at the universe, long long time from now, it would achieve a cold equilibrium where nothing more could happen and life could not exist. Ultimately even universe is going to cease to exist. So the whole thing actually sounds meaningless. Isn’t it depressing to hear? But we are here and now and can realize all these cosmos and the vibrant life that continuously recycles star dust. I think this paradox itself is immensely beautiful and provides countless opportunities to be amazed and to find meaning for our existence. Finding the meaning uplifts an ordinary life to an extraordinary one. Lack of meaning makes life mediocre if not depressing. That mediocrity creates ennui; the existential despair. Everyone experiences it now and then. Most come out of it. But sometimes, we may be going through a long phase of ennui unknowingly. It is important to pause and ask as the existential question “what am I doing?” and “what is my ultimate purpose?”. Answering these questions sincerely is difficult. The people of Okinawa tribe in Japan call the answer as their “Ikigai” - meaning “what makes one get in the morning?” One's Ikigai will be ‘what one is really good at, one wants to do, the world needs most and pays one sufficiently’. Having that Ikigai makes the Okinawa tribe to be happier and live longer than any other tribe.
In ‘Good to Great’, Jim Collins will introduce the concept of Bhag, Big Hairy Audacious Goal. It is for good companies that want to become great. I think that concept is applicable for individuals as well. Bhag is almost similar to Ikigai. It is what one is good at, one is passionate about and one would be paid well. Those companies that found their Bhag and went after it single mindedly were empirically proven to return order of magnitude higher returns to the stockholders compared to good companies that wander without a Bhag.
Both the concept of Bhag and Ikigai are applicable equally to self as well as organizations. Meaning of the existence for self and organizations should be transcending the monetary scale of success, as Viktor Frankl says. At the same time the ultimate purpose has to be placed in the context of the inherently meaninglessness of the whole thing. Then one can laugh at life as well whenever we feel so.
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