Everyone in the compound thought Babatunde was stubborn. He woke up every morning at 5 a.m to open a shop that barely sold anything. His children had begged him to retire. His wife had died ten years earlier. There was no practical reason for him to keep going.
One day, a boy wandered into the shop, confused, clutching a broken radio. Babatunde fixed it without charge. The next day, the boy returned. Then others followed. Soon, the shop was never empty.
Ikigai does not announce itself as passion or success. Sometimes, it is simply the refusal to disappear.
