Finding Your Oasis. A Little Bit About a Lot: Ike Gai to Stoicism

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence. Henry David Thoreau:

You may be at this point in your evolution because you are lost, wandering a highway without direction.

Many people, as they approach old age, begin to panic, feeling that they will die without having achieved a worthwhile objective, having failed to attain recognition and feeling that they will die unappreciated. This may be what used to be called our mid-life crisis. Except it is happening throughout our life.

We may feel listless, disgruntled, disappointed, angry, or any other emotion that deflects from the real problem: we have no purpose.

Canadian satirist, Stephen Leacock wrote, “he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.”

How many of us rush off in all directions, hoping to achieve something or the other, without a clear idea of what that may be? Even worse, how many of us are immobilized by doubts, choices, or lack of will?

At the start of my working life, I had an objective, rather than a goal. I wanted to make lots of money, to prove to my father-in-law that I could provide a quality life for his daughter. I had no idea why I wanted the money. I had no real plan as to how to become rich. I had no real desire, even at the age of 19, to buy fancy stuff. I only wanted to be rich, to prove to my in-law that he was wrong about me. I made money. But it was not my goal. I had no goal. I was riding off madly in all directions and, strangely, it was working.

It didn’t take long for stress to set in. I continued to drive forward. Soon, my health was suffering. I was only 24. I worked my career job 40 hours a week, spent countless hours building a brand-new house, started a time-consuming side-business, and fell into bed each night. I didn’t sleep, worried about the next obstacle.

Oddly, my wife had no interest in the money part of my marriage. She only wanted someone who would love her and be with her. I wasn’t. My marriage failed because I wanted to make money to impress my father-in-law. Instead of providing balance and purpose, my efforts were misguided, because I had no real, sustainable purpose.

When I suggest that the first step in finding your oasis is to identify, that means that the primary goal is to identify what is important to you that may be your purpose in life. Whether you are 25 or 65, your life needs purpose.

Unlike the Japanese culture, work does not define you. Work may be an essential part of who you are, but it must not be tedium.

Purpose will be intrinsic, not determined by outside influences. This concept is a confluence of the Japanese Ike Gai and the Greek Stoicism. Identifying your purpose will not be easy. It involves a multitude of steps and analyses. It also cannot be compartmentalized. It is the essence of how you will choose to live.

Once you have determined your purpose, you will be required to continue to search, to refine.  If the path is easy, and clear of obstacles and delays, it may not be a worthwhile purpose. It also will not be self-serving. As Helen Keller declared, “True happiness is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.”

If you have begun the process of finding your oasis, thinking it will be like a fad diet—simple and full of self-defeating quick solutions—abandon the efforts right away. Finding your oasis is not simple. If finding that next watering hole were simple and free of challenges, few nomads would have bothered to trek from oasis to oasis.

If you are looking for a way to live a life of material indulgence, that is certainly the wrong path to fulfilment.

This program will challenge you, transform you and, ultimately, enrich you in immeasurable ways. But it requires work.

It may be a poor example, but bikers who want to join the Hell’s Angels are not granted membership automatically. Joining is arduous and challenging. That makes, for wannabees and strikers, the process worthwhile.

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