Ikigai (生き甲斐) is a Japanese word that can be read literally as a “life’s worth” but can be more appropriately translated as the “purpose of one’s life.” The term seems to have been popularized in Japan in the mid-twentieth century, eventually making its way onto pop-science blogs and whatnot throughout the internet. Somewhere along the way it was broken down into four basic components that are often presented in a clever Venn diagram.