“Bail ó Dhia ar an obair” – Irish proverb meaning “God bless the work.”
There’s a Japanese word ikigai, which roughly translates as ‘having something to live for’. It is closely related to meaning, which is one of the five elements of well-being and happiness.
Studies have shown that having high levels of ikigai protects against cardiovascular disease and increases one’s life expectancy. Loneliness, social isolation and lack of purpose can contribute to an early death following retirement. Having an ikigai gives you something to strive for, to aim towards and to enjoy. Simply put: it’s a reason to get out of bed in the morning.
Since I’ve been in Japan I’ve become kind of fascinated by watching people work. Restaurants are great because the layout lends itself to my voyeuristic habits. In izakaya like this one, for example, a low counter runs the length of the building along a usually open kitchen, where you can see all of the cooking and preparation work being done. I spend a good hour watching a couple well-past retirement age tending to all the different tasks of the evening – cooking, preparing, serving drinks, greeting customers and making small talk, but never being hurried or seeming stressed.
Watching the man cut fish is a thing of beauty. The slow and methodical way he slices the flesh into perfect matching pieces show off the years he has spent perfecting his craft. So too the gentle brush strokes he uses to marinate the meat before piercing the bite-sized chunks onto skewers and setting them onto the grill in neat rows. Everything is done with care and he never seems rushed, even as the bar fills up.
Everything is being done with the utmost attention to detail. I wonder how long they’ve been doing this for. How many years of setting up and operating the kitchen every day, chopping, marinating, preparing, grilling, serving, cleaning, wiping. Feeding and befriending their customers and having the chats. Such effortless execution of skills takes years of deliberate practice and effort. Their age suggests they could have been at it for 50 years.
Jiro Ono has been at it for 75 years. Known as the World’s Greatest Sushi Chef, he is the subject of the inspirational documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi. He claims to have been working in sushi restaurants since he had to leave home at the age of seven. Many people get an early start on their careers so they can get an early start on their retirement, but Jiro is 86 at the time of filming (he’s 93 now and still going) and he is still wholly dedicated to not just maintaining, but improving, his skills as a sushi chef.
His demands on his staff may seem eccentric – new apprentices must spend months perfecting how to wring a hot towel before they’re allowed handle knives; after ten years of food preparation they’re allowed to cook eggs – but Jiro expects the same of himself.
His attention to detail reaches down to how far guests sit from him so that their sushi can be served at the correct temperature – a millimetre or a millisecond out and it won’t taste right. Octopuses were massaged for 30 minutes before preparation until Jiro realised that it would taste better if they were massaged for 45 minutes. An apprentice is moved to tears when Jiro finally accepts his 200th batch of eggs as being ‘good enough’. Jiro is such a tough master that even his customers get nervous as he watches them eat.
Is all of this worth it? A prominent Tokyo food critic, who provides narration and context throughout, says:
“When I ate the tasting course I felt like I was listening to music.”
Many say that eating at Jiro’s is the best meal they’ve ever had in their life. For Jiro, dinner is not just a meal to be eaten, but an experience to be enjoyed. He says that his work is for posterity, ‘for the benefit of all future generations’. He sees himself as a shokunin – a master craftsman – who believes that hard work and the repetition of skills in the name of improving one’s art are a form of social conscience.
He must love sushi though? He clearly does, but Jiro’s passion for making sushi may just have been a coincidence of where he found refuge after running away from home. The story could just as easily have been called ‘Jiro Dreams of Work’. The documentary didn’t so much make me crave a sushi dinner as it did make me excited to go into work in the morning.
“Once you decide on your occupation… you must immerse yourself in your work. You have to fall in love with your work. Never complain about your job. You must dedicate your life to mastering your skill. That’s the secret of success… and is the key to being regarded honorably.”
The satisfaction taken from a job done well is visible everywhere you go in Japan. Sometimes it’s the subway station attendants who take such pride in welcoming each individual in the herd of commuters into the train station. Or it could be evidence of craftsmanship such as the tear-jerking beauty of shop-front calligraphy. Conscientiousness has been linked to positive health and life expectancy, which could be part of the reason why people live ‘til they’re 84 here.
So maybe having something to get out of bed in the morning is more important than dreaming of putting your feet up when you retire. But what if you hate your job? Austrian psychotherapist Viktor Frankl saw how people were able to find meaning even working in the grounds of Auschwitz:
“For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.”
For many people like Jiro, their ikigai is their job, or their work. The sense of purpose might even be able to elevate mundane roles to something more important, like the janitor at NASA who told JFK his job was to “send rockets to the moon”. But it could be anything: family, a hobby, a sports club you play with, or even just one you follow. For many people in Japan or wider Asia, it’s their community and family. Something that maybe doesn’t take as much predominance in people’s lives at home anymore. According to Hector Garcia, the author of a book on ikigai:
“You don’t need huge ambition to be very happy, you just need a bunch of friends to drink green tea and talk with.”
Back in real life, the pub fills up around me with après-ski and après work groups and lone drinkers. Normally averse to crowds, I don’t actually begrudge the groups of tourists this time – they’re giving the cooks more work to do. I could sit here and watch them all day (though I have to get back to work).
Welcome to my blog – I’m just doing my bit to corrupt the internet with long-form creative writing.
If you haven’t already, then sign up below for regular stories, essays and blog posts about travel, the outdoors and how our environment affects our well-being.
Completely free, zero spam, pure peace of mind.