I call it Operation Morning Glory. It sounds more dramatic than it is. Every morning, Janna and I do the same things in the same order. It started as habit. It became something we protect. The sequence First, the animals. Judy, our golden retriever, is already awake and waiting. Waffles and Pancakes, our two cats, appear from wherever cats sleep and remind us that they are starving. We feed them. This takes five minutes. Then coffee. We use a Chemex pour-over, which is slower

Ikigai is a Japanese concept that roughly translates to "a reason for being." It became popular in the West after researchers noticed that people in Okinawa, one of the world's Blue Zones, seemed to have something most of us lack: a clear sense of why they get up in the morning. The concept gets visualized as four overlapping circles: What you love doing. What you are good at. What the world needs. What you can get paid for. Where all four overlap is your ikigai. Source: Bend