Beacon of Light

In the 1931 novel Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the glow from an oil lamp in the window of a lone house up in the mountains helps an aeroplane pilot to avoid crashing. In the days before the invention of radar, the occupier of this remote dwelling unwittingly the pilot’s life. Japanese writer Tsuyako Miyake saw this story as analogous to how little things that we think we are doing just for ourselves may be vital to a total stranger. “We are all doing something for countless strangers and countless strangers are doing something for us,” she commented in 1969. ‘I try to keep this in mind always.” Imagine, then, the impact you can make when you actively seek to serve others in ways aligned to your personal ikigai. Let your light shine.