Living with purpose

I was born in a middle class household.

My parents gave me the best education they could afford.

After schooling, I choose a stream of graduation, that most of my classmates did.

After completing my higher studies, I joined a respectable company.

After working for a few years, I got married; and my responsibilities increased.

Within a couple of years, my 1st child was born. A second one followed soon afterwards.

The foremost aim of my life now was to provide a good upbringing to my children.

I gave them the best education and values that I could, just like my parents had done to me. I saw them grow up and become self reliant.

The years passed by, I retired from my job, retreated to my hometown, and spent the rest of my days in peace.

Then one fine day, I had an heart-attack, and died.

Isn’t this the story of most of our lives?

Don’t most of us live our lives along predictable lines?

Aren’t most of the decisions we take during our lives dictated by what our peers are doing?

Have we ever sat back and wondered, if the decisions we make all our lives, are dictated by what we want, or what we have been told is the right thing to do?

Have we ever asked ourselves the questions,

Why have I been born?

What is the purpose of my life?

How is my life different from the billions around me?

Am I not wasting the life God has given me, by just going through the motions?

How will people remember me when I am gone? Or will people remember me at all?

Do I want to sit back at the fag end of my days, and be at a loss to figure out what I achieved in life?

Do I want to live an unknown life, and die and unknown death, like the hundreds of generations before me?

Or do I want to do something different, be someone different, make a difference.

You may say,

Studying well, working hard, fulfilling my parents’ ambitions, and looking after my children, in the very purpose of my life.

If I can do all this well, I will feel I have been succeeded in my life.

After all, how many people can claim to have done all these things well?

But I say,

Though not many succeed, but everyone tries to achieve the above.

What are you doing in your life which others are not?

What is your distinct identity?

Are you one among a million, or one in a million?

Not everyone can become a Gandhi or a Gates.

Not everyone has the ability, or the opportunity, to change the world.

But that does not mean each of us cannot make a difference in our own little worlds.

Each one of us can pursue a unique passion, follow a novel hobby, help the society, protect the environment, raise awareness, oppose injustice, read, write, play, sing, speak.

Why not do something that makes us unique, something that people appreciate, something that people remember.

No matter how small the contribution, no matter how few it impacts, it is better than living without a purpose.

Kabeera jab hum paida hue, jag hanse hum roye..

Aisi karni kar chalo, hum hanse jag roye..

(When you were born.. you wept, while the world smiled..

Live such a life, that when you die.. you smile, while the world weeps..)