Spurthi Alluri I’m usually pretty skeptic bout super popular books that EVERYONE’s reading, and I didn’t expect it to be any good, but it didn’t turn out to be as bad as I thought it’d be. Also, I’ve recently built a Japanese culture obsession so I could be biased.
Firstly, this book does not tell you how to find your Ikigai, it just tells you that it’s essential to find your Ikigai. The book focusses on slowing down and having a calm, healthy, long life, as opposed to the fast-paced, overworked lifestyle most of us usually live.
Most of the lessons are cliché ones that we know oh-so-well: get 7-9 hours of sleep, replace junk food with fruits, eat vegetables, exercise daily etc. I would say it’s not absolutely inspiring, but it does give you a sort of reminder that you do need to do all the above things. An entire section even has pictures explaining surya namaskars and tai-chi. One new thing that I learned is that our body’s metabolism reduces by 90 percent for every half n hour that we sit down idle, and we’re all so succumbed to that habit, especially those who have desk jobs.
One section explains about a Japanese village and how they live a healthy lifestyle, by gardening the first thing every morning (which is pretty interesting – apparently to keep your body functioning, you’ve got to work your fingertips!), walking/cycling and not owning/using any motor vehicles, cutting out meat from your diet and mostly eating homegrown organic vegetables – which is a great lifestyle, cause you’re not only doing good to yourself, you’re doing good to the environment.
Overall, it’s a pretty easy, light read. You could read it if you’re like me and want to know what all the fuss is about. But there are so many more better self-help books that you could look in to.
Happy reading. 🙂
