Why wake up in the morning?
When I wake up, I love finding my sweet kitty Ellie on the bed with me. She patiently waits for me to stir, and then walks up toward my face for a gentle greeting.
But what she’s really excited about is me giving her breakfast. As soon as I show signs of getting out of bed, she hops down and, tail like a flag in the air, rubbing affectionately, she watches to see if I’m headed toward her food area. Sometimes I take a while to get there, and she is patient again. When I do feed her, there is lots of sweet rubbing and meowing.
Then we each go on with our day. I treasure sharing this morning start with Ellie.
There are other levels of why I get up in the morning. One I can best express as getting to experience the simple magic of being alive. It’s my felt sense of the answer to my mom’s wish for me to “Be happy.”
It’s the spark I feel in hearing Ellie’s paws softly thump-thump-thump when she jumps down to the floor. It’s experiencing the small beauties of nature, like frog sounds and the way water ripples. It’s seeing a seedling pop up, and then a plant develop, from a seed I planted.
I recently started listening to podcasts for Japanese listening comprehension. In one of these, podcasters Miku and Yuyu talk about ikigai, the Japanese concept of reason for living, what makes life valuable, or joy for life.
Yuyu creatively spoke of “salad ikigai” and “candy ikigai.” The salad is the work you do in the world, what you do for the benefit of others, and what’s good for your wellbeing. The candy is what brings you joy right now in this moment.
Your answer to “Why get up the morning?” may be “Because I have to” — for work, for school, because the kids need me. It might even be because your pet is bugging you for breakfast.
The things you have to do can feel heavy. You probably feel that they keep you from getting to what you really want to do. When what you have to do is not aligned with what lights up for you, life feels dull or hard.
But what can help you realign with your spark is asking why you do it. If I were irritated at Ellie for needing me to get up and feed her, I could ask myself why I get up for her. I might need to go through several layers of whys, but eventually I’d get to my inspiration: our companionship sparks my sense of love for life.
My sense is that the salad and the candy can overlap. When you keep your awareness on your root inspirations — what really brings you enthusiasm for life — and keep walking through life like this, magic can happen.
It’s like the moment in The Matrix when a boy reveals that the secret to bending a spoon is that “there is no spoon.” When you keep your awareness on your spark, you might start noticing that your salad is made of candy.
