How Will You Measure Your Life?

Purpose of my life?

We faced this important question during our Business Ethics course that made me think deeper about life in general. We work hard, take care of our family, earn money, spend it, and then want more money and fame just so that we might be successful and happy one day.

In the end, we all will leave the world taking back nothing.

So what’s the purpose of our living? Can we think beyond ourselves?

I was brought up in a Hindi culture where my parents taught me “Sanatana Dharma” — A part of living. No lie, do your good karma, be respectful to all races and cast, live with purpose, accept every human being the way they are, and give love.

Having the right values in place, I can see many suffering worldwide. I come from India, where many children die from starvation. I used to work in orphan NGOs in India during my weekends when I used to live there and told people that my dream was to build an orphanage for kids in Sri Lanka, and I am nowhere close to that dream today. As I ask myself why have I not worked on it… the honest answer is — I am scared of failing, I am afraid I might not do it right, I am scared of losing my current lifestyle, I am scared of how I will pay my bills while I get on to this journey. Today I feel very passionate about saving our planet and contributing my skills in this area. I want to adopt a fully sustainable lifestyle where I cause minor damage to the plant. I want to work professionally in an industry or firm working towards clean energy / sustainable solutions.

With a dream and a passion in my heart, I feel that I have found my life’s purpose. However, I need to start taking action around it. I believe I have the correct values in me, and with a bit of discipline, I would be on track to fulling it.

How do I plan to allocate time and resources to achieve my purpose in life?

· Spend a few hrs of my Sunday working for an orphanage in Hong Kong

· Spend 5% of my week learning about ESG and creating awareness

· Changing my daily habits towards living a sustainable life — less wastage of water and energy, reusing products, making the right product choices.

· Mediate and be kind to others and, more importantly, love myself.

How do I stay humble?

I try to stay humble by treating everybody as I treat myself and my loved ones. I try not to look up to anybody and look down at anybody and just see everything the way it is. This is the fundamental of the Hindu culture that my parents brought me up with.

When I visited the temple, I did Namaskaram to god, man, woman, cow, snake, rock. During Namaskaram we take both our palms, join them and bow towards people and things around us — which means the “The Divine in me honors the Divine in you.” Just joining our hands and in our heart saying, ‘I bow to you.’ It is a gesture that brings in me humbleness towards others. We treat everyone equally, including humans, living and non-living creatures.

Everybody Namaskaram.

How do I measure “success” in my life?

I have come to a stage where success is seeing my parent live, being able to talk to them daily, and seeing my twin niece and nephew grow healthy & being happy. If I could go to bed without spilling some tears, that day would be a success. If I could make someone smile and help heal someone — my life would succeed. I am not sure if I can build the orphanage of my dream, but if I could in some ways help any child or children around me… that will count as life success for me!!!!

If you are reading this, I want you’ll to ask these questions yourself and try finding answers to them. When you think about living with purpose, you get the power to face every other problem and challenge.