100 Saturdays of Seeking

“The silence between essays” a retrospective and a milestone celebration of the long game

🌸 ikigai 生き甲斐 is a reason for being, your purpose in life - from the Japanese iki 生き meaning life and gai 甲斐 meaning worth 🌸

What lives in the spaces

One hundred essays. One hundred Saturdays. One hundred times sitting down with my journal, swirling thoughts and this blinking cursor, trying to make sense of what it means to seek purpose in a world that changes faster than we can process it.

I’ve been writing consistently for nearly two years now, and the real magic lives in the silence between essays. In the Tuesday morning when you're brushing your teeth and suddenly see something differently because you've been thinking on paper for months. In the Wednesday conversation that sparks because you've been working things out loud, creating a surface area for luck and connection.

The dawning realisation that the seeking itself was already a reason for being.

I started this practice because I felt adrift, disconnected from purpose in my late 40s. What I've discovered is that having a vessel to pour your passion and thinking into creates the most amazing alchemy. Every book I read, every conversation I have, every programme I watch, every podcast I listen to… there's somewhere for it to land, to ferment, to become something new. Thoughts that might have dissipated or scattered across a million different places now weave together into understanding.

Ideas bump into each other in my journal that would never have met otherwise. Connections emerge that surprise me. People find me because I've been brave enough to think out loud about what matters.

This is my love letter to the long game, to showing up even when you feel broken, to the beautiful, messy business of becoming who you're meant to be through the simple act of putting pen to paper and fingers to keyboard, week after week after week.

Perhaps you have noticed this too… when a practice spills over into everyday life in ways you never expected.

The greatest hits that built this

Looking back across these 100 Saturdays, certain essays feel like foundation stones, pieces that paint who I am and what I stand for. They're arranged here thematically, showing how a philosophy of purpose has grown into a practice of life.

They are not just milestones for me, but invitations for you to consider where your own purpose might be whispering.

The ikigai foundation

This trilogy is a relatively recent attempt to convey my evolving ikigai thinking in three parts, I will keep working out loud, testing ideas, building understanding piece by piece. If you’ve been dismantling your own misconceptions, you’ll know how liberating it can feel.

Why Should I Care About IKIGAI? The "why" was written for the fierce little girl inside me who feels too much. I needed to understand that purpose doesn't always feel purposeful, but you can still show up even feeling broken when you care about something MORE than how awful you feel.

What actually is ikigai? The "what" essay reveals that purpose is inextricably linked to agency. Ikigai isn't a Venn diagram, the real concept is beautifully simple… finding joy in the little things, starting small and being in the here and now. Ikigai is a felt sense, a quiet knowing in your bones that this is enough.

How To Find Your Ikigai The "how" piece brings it home to practical reality and my battle-tested roadmap honed over two years. Philosophy without practice is just pretty words. This shows you a very practical way to develop your “purpose literacy”.

Reflection for you… what’s a misconception you have dismantled recently that changed how you see yourself?

The personal revelations

No longer expected to be beautiful was scary to publish. Writing about growing older as a woman, about finding freedom in the lifting of expectations, about loving my face exactly as it is… that felt like standing naked in front of a crowd, but it connected with so many women navigating their own relationships with ageing and beauty standards. Sometimes vulnerability becomes our superpower.

Your Awkward Voice Matters emerged from my frustrations at men’s silence in online conversations about gender inequity, and I was even more scared to talk about this (warranted as it turns out, I was unfriended for doing so!) The general warmth of response taught me though that it is always worth speaking up and that authenticity resonates far more than polish. We're all making it up as we go along, and admitting that creates permission for others to do the same.

Everyone's Neurodivergent on a Long Enough Timeline explored how our one-size-fits-all world fails pretty much everyone at some point. “The violence of average in action” and “We created environments that serve systems instead of souls” are two of my favourite observations from it. The responses showed me how hungry people are for environments designed for humans as we actually are, not as we think we should be.

1000 True Fans + Ikigai = Your Purpose Power-Up merged Kevin Kelly's audience-building wisdom with Japanese philosophy to create something uniquely mine. This essay taught me that building an audience creates constellations of meaningful connections that help your purpose take flight “the best way to find your community is to BE your ideal community member.”

Together, these essays taught me that change often begins in small, personal acts of honesty. Naming what hurts. Speaking when it feels easier to stay silent. Questioning the systems that flatten our uniqueness. Imagining community as something built through care, not performance. Each piece felt risky in its own way, but together they showed me that the truths we are most afraid to share can be the very ones that set us (and others) free.

Reflection for you… what truth or perspective feels tender to share, but might hold the key to your own sense of freedom?

The analogue magic

The bullet journaling essays show how ancient practices of reflection can anchor us in our digital age. I wrote Bullet Journal and take control of your life as a friendly introduction and overview of the practice, whereas One Journal to Rule Them All was a deeper dive into why having it all in one place is a big part of why it works so well for me.

Achievement Unlocked is also dear to me because it captured the gaming metaphor that makes personal development feel playful rather than punishing. Your bullet journal becomes your life manual, complete with character stats, daily quests and achievement unlocks. Who says growing into who you're meant to be can't be fun?

These essays established that you can create the most effective LifeOS with just pen and paper, designing your life and writing it into existence, away from notifications and algorithms and all that noise.

Reflection for you… what is the analogue practice that steadies you most in this digital age?

The AI experimentation

AI has been my playground and test lab… and also a mirror that keeps asking me what it means to stay human.

The Right Side of History was one of my earliest essays on how humanity intersects with AI. I was thinking about how much I dislike transphobia, my thought train wondered about societal evolution of what’s deemed to be right and wrong, and how can we reconcile such global differences to be able to navigate setting universal AI ethics.

Purpose, Paper & Pixels This piece solidified my unique intersection, and allowed me to explore the excitement of rapid AI advancement while caring deeply about preserving what makes us uniquely human.

The Ikigai Risk of AI introduces readers to the concept that even in optimistic scenarios where AI enhances rather than threatens humanity, we still face challenges to what makes us fundamentally human, our need for meaningful work and contribution. While I didn’t coin this phrase, I feel uniquely drawn to it and currently writing a chapter on it for a collaborative book with She Writes AI.

Does This AI Automation Spark Joy? brought Marie Kondo's wisdom to digital curation. Not every efficiency should be embraced just because it's possible. We need to choose thoughtfully which mental muscles require regular exercise and which tasks genuinely deserve to disappear.

Through these essays I shared that I was someone who neither fears AI nor embraces it uncritically, but seeks to help people navigate this transformation with intention and wisdom.

Reflection for you… what’s one task you would never want to automate, because doing it is part of what makes you feel human?

What two years of Saturdays taught me

This practice has been transformative for my personal development, mental health and clarity of purpose. Every Saturday deadline has been a gift, a reason to synthesise what I'm learning, to connect dots I wouldn't have otherwise connected, to push my thinking just a little further. More than that it reminds me how any consistent creative practice can shift the way we see ourselves. Writing, painting, walking, paying attention. Whatever the form, the act of returning to it changes things.

The essays have become breadcrumbs leading me toward who I am becoming. They have also attracted wonderful humans into my orbit… people who think deeply about purpose, who are not afraid of vulnerability, who understand that seeking is often more valuable than finding. Some of you have even written back with your own practices… bullet journals with doodles, AI experiments, reflections sparked by your morning walks. That exchange is what makes this more than my story… it is ours.

I have learned that caring about something more than how vulnerable you feel changes everything. That consistency beats perfection. That thinking out loud creates opportunities you could never imagine.

Most importantly, I have learned the power of creating a category of one. Mine has turned out to be the weaving of ikigai, bullet journaling and AI. There are many voices in each of these spaces, but this particular combination is mine. Discovering it has been a revelation. Instead of competing to be the best in someone else’s game, I can offer what only I can create. And my hope is that you find your own unique blend too… the combination of passions and practices that no one else could bring into the world in quite the way you can… and I hope that lights a fire in you as it does in me, knowing I'm creating something new that can help others.

As I stand at the threshold of 50, I'm not done seeking. If anything, these 100 essays have shown me how much more there is to explore, to understand, to become. The silence between essays continues to be fertile ground where ideas germinate and connections form.

Here's to the next 100 Saturdays, and to everyone brave enough to seek their own reason for being in this beautiful life and messed-up, complicated world. To all of us still seeking. May we keep showing up, keep writing our own maps and keep finding the quiet magic in the spaces between.

Thank you for reading, for thinking alongside me, for making this journey feel less like shouting into the void and more like conversation with dear friends.

Before I close, I’d love to hear from you on this special occasion (or just click the loveheart if you are feeling shy *grin*)… what’s something you’ve stuck with long enough that it surprised you how much it changed you?

Sarah, seeking ikigai xxx

PS - ✍️ Bullet Journal Reflection

If you’d like to mark this 100th essay with me, here are some questions you could sit with in your own practice;

"Looking back over the past year, what are the moments when I felt most deeply aligned with my purpose? What patterns do I notice in these moments? How can I create more of them?"

"What would I write if I had a sacred secret space just for my thoughts? What's one thing I've been avoiding putting on paper that might need to be explored?"

"If I were to start my own version of consistent creative practice, what would it look like? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? What format would feel most natural or enjoyable for my life right now?"

PPS - 🤖 AI Coaching Prompt

"I want to start a consistent creative practice to help me think through my life and purpose. Based on my interests in [fill in], my available time of [amount], and my preference for [format - writing, video, audio, visual], help me design a sustainable practice. What themes might I explore? How could I track my growth? What obstacles might I face and how could I overcome them?"

PPPS - 🎶 Soundtrack for today’s ikigai exploration

Babylon by David Gray – A song that has carried me through many chapters, a mix of melancholy and hope. The refrain “let go of your heart, let go of your head, and feel it now” captures so much of what these 100 Saturdays have been imperfectly trying to get to, my ikigai felt sense … showing up, letting go and feeling your way into meaning. I actually bought tickets just yesterday to see him again on tour next June, and I cannot wait. It feels like the perfect companion to this milestone. (Apologies it’s a Stern link but it’s the only video version I could find of the full song!)

PPPPS - If you've made it this far I'm so SO grateful. Whether you've been here since essay one or just joined us, whether you comment or read quietly, you matter. Your attention is a gift, and I don't take it lightly. Thank you xxx