Experience
Experiment, test, and try to 'experience' your Ikigai
🌱 “Who are we, who is each one of us, if not a combination of experiences, information, books we have read, things imagined?
Italo Calvino
audio narration by David Marlow
Definition.
experience (n.)
observation as the source of knowledge; actual observation; doing
an event which has affected one through direct personal participation or observation
to be emotionally or aesthetically moved by; feel: to experience beauty.
to participate in or undergo
From the Old French esperience it meant ‘proof,’ and from Latin experientia ‘a trial, proof, experiment’ or ‘knowledge gained by repeated trials.’
With older root meanings to try, test, and venture.
Risk
It is telling that the antonyms or opposites of experience are…
unenlightened- failing to obtain knowledge, understanding, or insight
ineffective- a root meaning of to render helpless, useless
ignorance-not knowing, specifically about oneself.
We learn about ourselves when we experience things.
I’ve shared the idea that the process of uncovering your Ikigai requires you to experiment, test, and try to 'experience' your Ikigai rather than wait for it to come to you.
When we don’t invest in testing, trying, and experimenting we face the risk of burnout.
Source: Harvard Business Review
When we aren’t living out our Ikigai, we risk disintegration.1 We live integrated lives when we are operating as the whole person in our Ikigai.
Look at all the balancing going on in the graph leading to declining well-being in nearly 90% of people at home and at work.
📌 When we try to 'balance' rather than live in harmony with our essence and purpose; eventually, we start to disintegrate.
Funny how in trying to 'hold ourselves together' in such circumstances, we are contributing to our disintegration.
Without trying, experimenting, and learning we can’t uncover that hidden part of ourselves.
The longer it remains hidden the greater risk of misalignment in our lives leading to burnout and worse.
Opportunity🌀
If we learn about ourselves when we experience things then we uncover our authentic selves only by experiencing life.
The process of uncovering your Ikigai requires you to experiment, test, and try to 'experience' your Ikigai rather than wait for it to come to you.
When we try, test, and learn we experience life as our true selves.
Experience in this sense relates to the words 'expert' and 'experiment'. Viewing experiences as experiments - a way of trying things - helps eliminate the fear of failure. We can be open to discovery and understanding.
We become more ‘expert’ in understanding ourselves as we experiment and learn.
We give up the unenlightened, ignorant, and ineffective self to live our purpose.
Story
To say that I’ve done some bold things in my life would be an understatement.
I walked into a radio station when I was 16 years old and asked for (and got) a job on the air. I joined the Marine Corps when I didn’t even realize Marines went to sea. Spoiler alert they do!
I’ve left safe and secure jobs to start businesses, run marathons, swam in shark-infested waters, and a host of other daring tests, experiments, and trials.
And I was 50 years old when I ate my first orange.
I couldn’t eat oranges as a kid. Not only oranges, texture and taste issues kept me from being able to eat about three-quarters of what most people not only ate but loved eating.
The orange came about one day when the cafeteria at work installed a new orange slicer. It looked like the apple slicer though given the differences in apples and oranges (insert your own joke here) I knew it had to work differently.
As an engineer, I had to try it and then I didn’t want to waste the orange…
So I ate it.
Fast forward a few years to a business trip in Boston and everyone on the team is having…
Raw oysters.
I decided if I was ever going to try raw oysters in my life it might as well be in a place where they have great ones like Boston. That’s my dinner pictured above.
During my week in Boston, I tried them twice at two different restaurants. No, I didn’t love them.
What I did love was daring myself to try something new and way out of my comfort zone. Did I mention I didn’t eat an orange until I was 50?
This has become a whole new area of experimentation and growth for me.
I look for things I ‘couldn’t’ eat as a kid to try all the time now.
There are still some things, even after trying again, that I can’t eat. Meatloaf for example. Not eating meatloaf is a hill I’m prepared to die on. 😉
Meatloaf aside, the list is shrinking all the time. My eating identity is in closer alignment with my true self.
The oyster breakthrough prompted me to try something else out of my comfort zone.
Getting into a Celtics playoff game at the last minute. I was out with the team and I realized the Celtics were in town for a playoff game against Lebraun James.
Dinner was over and no one else wanted to go so I took an Uber to the arena and waited until just prior to the National Anthem to buy a ticket at the cheapest possible price.
It was a blast.
Application.
People ask me to help them ‘find’ their Ikigai though it is already there deep inside them.
Trying, experimenting, and taking some risks reveals things about ourselves that waiting and contemplation can’t. It builds confidence in expressing our true selves.
Trying different things also helps you identify and develop your talent. It also enables you to figure out ways to express your Ikigai through those talents.
🌀Reflection.
🌱 Am I enjoying what I’m experiencing right now? Why or why not?
🌱 What things have I been afraid to try? Are any of them old and outdated like the ‘orange’ experience?
🌱 What is still in store for me?
🌱 What would I like to be in store for me?
🌀 Remember: No matter what has come before, today is a fresh start. 🌱
Let’s make things a little bit better. 🌱
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Of course loved the segment today that revealed more of David Marlow and what stood out was that you were willing to get out of the comfort zone and still do not need to like some of the new experiences. I have some too but very little with food as I like 99% of what I have seen within my scope and would try most anything worthwhile not as a dare but to expand my experiences. Yes enjoyed the Boston notes as I was born in Boston, lived in East Boston until a teenager and moved to the South Shore (MA) where I have been since...and yes traveled around inside and outside the USA. One thing that really caught my attention... you saying you swam in shark invested waters. Of course Jaws was filmed in Cape Cod (embedded in me as a teenager) and we see sharks, especially Great Whites much in the Summer and on Shark Week in July. For me not as much fear as the type of sharks are less than others, but if in Great White especially shark infested waters I was to swim in and the losing my life to the horror of the incident would be terrifying but more so is the fact that my family/friends would blame it on me...and I think they would be right ;) SO> lesson to be learned as I have done my share of challenges is>>>weigh the challenge and make sure the event is worth dying for because it just may be the case and honestly most are not in that context! Make sure the experience is one you can live with and is truly done for the right reasons...