Dark Side of IKIGAI: What No One Tells You About Finding Your Purpose

I used to think finding my Ikigai meant chasing what I wanted. After dropping out of engineering, building hardware, launching a nano-satellite startup, coding apps, meditating in the Himalayas, and attempting to revolutionize Indian agriculture – I discovered something unexpected. The real key to finding your life's purpose isn't just about knowing what you want; it's about understanding what you don't want.

My Journey: A Series of Plot Twists 🌱

When it comes to living a meaningful life, IKIGAI has been my guiding light, pushing me to dive deeper into self-discovery and understand what truly makes me come alive.

My journey has been all over the place – I dropped out of engineering to dive into entrepreneurship, when it was needed, I started with web development, then shifted to hardware, then to UX design, jumped into app and backend development.

It's been a whirlwind of scattered experiences and constant self-exploration.

And if that wasn't enough, three years ago, I left everything behind – my startup, home, and even my laptop – to head to the Himalayas. I was chasing a deeper understanding of life and meditation. I wanted to become a monk and explore the hidden mysteries of existence. If it weren't for the COVID lockdown, I might not have returned home at all!

Fast forward to eight months ago – I thought I'd revolutionize Indian agriculture after going through a deeper meditative experience. But reality hit hard, teaching me yet another profound lesson: I need to have lots of patience if I want to do something profound in Agriculture, So I had to quit, because I did not have the patience to commit a decade of life to one cause. For me, everything was about exploration.

At every stage of my journey, I kept thinking about Ikigai. Whenever I changed direction – from coding to hardware, from startups to meditation, and from tech to farming – I asked myself: Does this align with my purpose? Am I doing what I love, what the world needs, what I'm good at, and what can sustain me?

The Power of Elimination ✨

I realized that the true essence of Ikigai lies not only in knowing what you want but, more importantly, in understanding what you don't want. Every desire or goal brings along aspects you didn't anticipate – things you didn't really want.

I was driven to revolutionize agriculture because it aligned with my Ikigai. I had the right tech background, startup experience, and agriculture in India presents huge challenges. Solving those could trigger ripple effects, transforming the economy. Plus, after spending three months practicing meditation in an ashram, I felt a deep calling to do something connected with the earth. It seemed like everything was aligning perfectly.

However, after working in farming for 6-7 months, I realized what I didn't want. I didn't want to be tied to one place, which agriculture demands. I didn't want to rely heavily on others, but agriculture is highly dependent on labor and requires daily supervision. These dependencies started to clash with what I valued.

This experience brought me clarity: I want to be a solopreneur. Back in 2018, when I co-founded a startup, I had difficult experiences with my co-founder. That memory lingered, and it reaffirmed my preference for working independently.

Every experience, whether in tech, farming, or startups, has been a process of elimination – helping me discover what I don't want and gradually bringing me closer to understanding what I truly do.

And I believe this is the reality of life. As we move forward, our wants keep evolving, and we continue eliminating things. It seems to be the very nature of life – a gradual process of letting go. In the end, we may find ourselves wanting nothing at all, as death itself is the final act of elimination.

There's a saying in spirituality: if you truly grasp the temporary nature of everything around you, the only thing left to desire is to understand the truth of what is permanent within this impermanence – and that pursuit is spirituality.

But setting the spiritual aspect aside, if someone ask me now whether I've found my Ikigai, my honest answer is: I don't fully know. However, I can say that knowing what you don't want, alongside exploring your Ikigai, makes a tremendous difference.

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