When it comes to solving a mystery, it’s often said that the simplest answer is the best answer. This answer is Ikigai. It has just four directions for follow.
If you’re searching for your life’s purpose, consider this: Your soul has an issue that it needs to resolve. What steps can you take to get the answers you need? My own steps have taken me on adventures that might seem wild to some people. But the search for life’s meaning starts at a time when we are fresh and young; when we are full of piss and vinegar. For most people it started on the first day after high school graduation. But then what happened?
No kid fresh out of high school knows what the hell they are going to do with their life. At best, they are guessing, but aren’t we all? An eighteen-year-old’s job is to be beautiful and to parade around seeking companionship. Their job is to do what their hormones command. They must be seen. They must also experiment with as many grown-up life experiences as possible. Carl Jung called them “athletes.” Nature is doing its job. Their job is to parade their young bodies around in search of a mate.
I often share the immortal words of a fake Buddha quote with fresh graduates. I hold my finger in the air in a professorial manner and state, “Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart give yourself to it.” Buddha didn’t really say that, but it’s still profound because when it comes right down to it, fake Buddha was talking about Ikigai.
In 1987, I was a twenty-year-old young man with long hair, a feeble moustache, and an eager smile. They were my only assets. As far as I knew, my life ahead was meant to be a series of well-paying jobs to earn a living. There was no such thing as having a life purpose. But there was something in my gut that insisted there was more. It whispered to me.
Every day I would wake up in the morning and dutifully grab a quick breakfast and a coffee before heading out the door to go to my job. I was employed on the highways as a survey crew member. My job was to go where the crew chief asked me to go. He’d send me up the road a hundred meters at a time. Then, I’d turn to face him while holding a red-and-white striped pole straight up and down on the road for him to guide through his scope. I would move it incrementally left or right, as he directed me, with his hand movements. If he held his arm out to his left, I moved the pole to my right. If he quickly moved his arm to the right, I moved the pole a little to the left. When the pole was bang on where he needed it, he lifted both arms above his head and formed an X. I dug the pole’s steel tip into the road and marked it with a piece of chalk. Ultimately, what I did was help to make straight lines.
This job helped me to realize that life was so different; life is not a straight line. It’s a meandering, drunken stumble that goes forward and left and right and backward. And there is no one directing you where to go. We go through life like we are barefoot in a monstrous pitch-black room, with a few random pieces of Lego scattered sparingly throughout. Our task is to find our way through the room by learning a little more about the room every day. With age and wisdom, we learn to avoid stepping on the pieces of Lego. The Legos are the painful parts of life. The rest of the room is everyday life.
But what if a dimly lit red-and-white traffic pylon suddenly appeared in that room? It would catch your attention. It might glow just bright enough for you to see in the distance. Would you pay attention to it? Would you walk toward it?
In June of 1987, I lay in my narrow single bed on a Saturday morning, staring at the ceiling. I looked forward to every weekend, so I could have some time to enjoy myself. My job as a survey assistant was a well-paying job but wasn’t fulfilling for me. It was a job, but it wasn’t my passion.
As I lay flat on my back, I wondered what my future had in store for me. Is my current situation what life is supposed to be? Do I work from Monday to Friday doing something that pays well? And then enjoy Saturdays and Sundays, dreading the Mondays, repeating ad nauseam, until I retire? It didn’t seem possible that this is all that life was intended to be.
My dad’s life was like this, though. He was a hard worker. He worked on the highways too. During the summers, he would be gone for months at a time, paving long stretches of black asphalt roadways. He’d start his days at five in the morning. He worked twelve to fourteen hours a day. At the end of the day, he’d grab a quick bite to eat, then head to his bunkhouse to crumple in exhaustion onto his bed. His generation did life that way.
It was depressing to think about my life going forward in the same way his did. I was conflicted. Surveying is a good and respectful line of work that I wanted to be thankful for. But why was I so miserable? What could I do with my life that would be interesting and fun? Was that even possible?
I took a deep breath. Think.
An idea exploded in my head like a firework. I sat straight up in my bed and exclaimed out loud, “I am going to music school.” At that moment I made a thousand decisions about my life going forward. The main decision was that I would focus on aspects of music for my upcoming jobs. I’d look into music business and sound engineering. I’d work at record stores and volunteer at music festivals. I’d study music management and music copyright. Any and all roads seemed possible to me. Music would be my thing.
Even though I didn’t fully understand the impact of that morning, I realized later in life that music has been a guide for me. It’s been a glowing red-and-white-striped pylon that I can see up the road. It has given me direction. Whether or not I chose to walk toward it was up to me. When I committed to approaching it, I was delighted to learn that I could trust in the gift of clear direction.
I made a trip to my local college to gather information. Red Deer College offered a music program that seemed like it was right up my alley. I didn’t have much experience in music. I had taken a few piano lessons when I was around ten. Surprisingly, after only a few months of lessons, my mom and music teacher saw a pattern. I would take my music lessons each week. I wouldn’t practice, but instead would play songs by ear all week. When I showed up at piano lessons, I hadn’t progressed at all in theory or playing scales. I could play the heck out of songs by ear, though. Mom and the teacher decided, that since I wasn’t learning anything in the lesson, I might as well stop. More importantly, they recognized that I enjoyed music. So, why not just let me do my thing on the piano and enjoy playing it? This might have been the most important decision they made in my life.
According to the info I picked up at Red Deer College, I would have to pass a two-stage process to get accepted into the music program. First, I would need to prepare two pieces of music to perform in a live audition. No problem. I’d just play and sing along to some tunes I had learned by ear. The second part I needed to pass was basic music theory. I hadn’t ever learned theory. I thought I was doomed.
My audition at Red Deer College took place in a small, windowless, hard-to-find room located in an impossible-to-find basement. The air was old and musty. The brown piano was scuffed and scraped on every corner. Its keys were as chipped and jagged as a prizefighter’s smile. It sounded good, however. It had been freshly tuned.
I liked the gentlemen who auditioned me right away. Ken Mallet and Keith Mann had firm handshakes and eager smiles. They showed authority and confidence. I respected and wanted to impress them. I played two songs. One was a cover of a pop song (probably “Hello” by Lionel Richie), and the other tune was one I made up as a joke.
The audition went over extremely well. Both Keith and