Have you found your Ikigai for the Climate?

Ikigai is that thing in our lives that provides a delicious richness - it’s what gives life, its raison d’être. There is a fire within us all; it may burn brighter in some than in others, and it may waver, but it can also return stronger, hotter, and more powerful than ever, and it takes different things to stoke the flames for each of us.
~Erin Niimi Longhurst in A Little Book of Japanese Contentments

One of my first blog posts back in April 2018 was titled Have you found your Ikigai?. Today, as the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) releases its devastating sixth assessment report, I want to revisit this tool in the light of engaging to mitigate climate change as each of us is asked to “come to the table and do something”. Emily Atkin in the July 12 issue of her Climate Newsletter Heated titled What can I do?: Anything wrote extensively about how we can each get involved. If you have not read it, I strongly recommend it. It has many many many resources from on-the-ground activism to political involvement to simply starting the conversation. Also, Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, co-editor of the book All We Can Save and co-host of the podcast How to Save a Planet has her own Venn diagram from her episode titled Is Your Carbon Footprint BS?, another resource I highly recommend.

And here is my take at a possible Climate Engagement Ikigai, replacing:
- what the world needs by what life on Earth needs and
- what you can be paid for by what you can pay forward
and keeping:
- what you are good at and
- what you love, i.e. what brings you alive,
moving from passion to mission and from profession to vocation, making sure that each of our actions include consideration for what life on Earth needs, going forward.

As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it.
~Antoine de St Exupery

Please reach out if you are interested in exploring your Climate Engagement Ikigai.

Warmly,
Anne-Marie
August 9, 2021
(414 ppm of atmospheric CO2 (safe level 350))

Poem: Listen to the Hummingbird by Leonard Cohen

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