Don’t Let “Capitalist Ikigai” Get You
A client recently told me he was thinking of quitting his hobby to find his purpose because he couldn’t see a way to monetize his hobby. He is burned out from his corporate career, and is actively searching for a Plan B.
“Where is the idea of mixing purpose, income, and hobby coming from?” I asked.
He showed me the Ikigai Venn Diagram and said:
“Isn’t this the way to find fulfillment in life? Something I love, that I’m good at, that the world needs, and that I can be paid for?”
It’s a familiar belief. Many of us have seen that colorful four-circle diagram floating around the internet, promising to help us find the secret to fulfillment.
But here’s the truth: Ikigai doesn’t have anything to do with what you can be paid for.
In Japanese culture, Ikigai (生きがい) simply means that which makes life worth living.
How Ikigai Got Westernized
The “Ikigai Venn Diagram” wasn’t originally about Ikigai at all.
In 2011, Spanish author and psychological astrologer Andrés Zuzunaga created what he called the Venn Diagram of Purpose, mapping the overlap between what you love, what you’re good at, what you can be paid for, and what the world needs.
In 2014, a blogger named Marc Winn merged Zuzunaga’s diagram with a TED Talk about Okinawan longevity. By simply swapping the word “purpose” for “Ikigai,” he created a new meme, one that spread like wildfire.
The diagram went viral and was quickly adopted by coaches, entrepreneurs, and HR managers as a framework for career alignment. And while it inspired millions, it also planted the idea that Ikigai is something you must monetize or professionalize to truly “live in alignment.”
That belief itself is a form of capitalistic conditioning. If you are staring at the diagram trying to evaluate your purpose only in terms of profession and money, you’ve already been trapped by the very mindset Ikigai was never about.
The Japanese Way of Ikigai
In Japanese culture, Ikigai is far more intimate and grounded. It isn’t about career success or saving the world. It’s about how you show up in your everyday life and the small things that quietly affirm: my life is worth living.
It's often about:
Contribution to your immediate circle — helping your family, friends, neighbors, or coworkers.
Practices that bring growth or flow, even if you’re not “good” at them yet.
Living in alignment with your values, doing things the “right way” simply because they feel right.
A great cultural example I can think of is Shinsuke Kita, a character in the popular manga series Haikyuu!!. He tidies himself and his environment daily with ritual-like care, not because he loves the process, but because he believes in “doing stuff right”, and "doing stuff right feels good". The cleaning ritual is his Ikigai. It's that simple.
As Noriyuki Nakanishi of Osaka University explains:
“The word ‘ikigai’ is used to indicate the source of value in one’s life or the things that make one’s life worthwhile.
It is not necessarily related to economic status.
Ikigai is personal; it reflects the inner self of an individual and expresses that faithfully.”
The Paradox of One True Calling
One of the biggest traps of the Westernized “Ikigai” is believing you must discover a single, perfect calling that also pays the bills. It turns something pure into a mind-driven project of self-worth and control. The result? More anxiety, not fulfillment.
We are multifaceted beings. Fulfillment doesn’t live in one neat intersection of love, talent, money, and needs. It comes unexpectedly when we stop trying to engineer life and instead allow it to unfold.
As Meiko Kamiya, the founder of Ikigai Psychology poetically put it:
“When we wake from sleep, we are greeted by the morning.
We did not create the morning.
It somehow came to give us the chance to live another day.
We wake up and discover the morning.
The meaning of life is like the morning.”
Ikigai isn’t something you strategize, monetize, or force into a plan. It’s what quietly reveals itself when you surrender mind's control and allow life’s dots to connect in their own time.
