A FEW YEARS AGO, I was travelling in
a crowded local bus in Chennai. It was
one of those afternoons, hot and humid.
Inside the bus people were squeezed for
space. In the middle of all that stood a
man in a blue lungi, tapping his fingers
on the backrest of the seat in front of him.
There was no music playing inside the
bus, but there was certainly one playing
inside him. He seemed untouched by the
chaos around him. He was physically in
the same crowded bus as everyone else,
yet mentally somewhere calmer, steadier.
It made me wonder what allows some people
to carry their own rhythm regardless of
circumstances.
College is often where we first begin
asking such questions. Somewhere in the
home or hostel room an unsettling thought
emerges: Where exactly am I moving toward?
We speak often of success, careers,
achievements and ambition, but far less
about direction. We are busy moving, but
not always sure where and why.
There is an old story about a king who
once declared that he wanted to know the
purpose of life. Scholars and ministers
tried to satisfy him, but their answers felt
incomplete. Finally, an elderly man told
him that life ends in dust. And that the
real purpose of life is to live for a purpose.
Without purpose, life becomes a chase
for pleasure; with purpose, it becomes
meaningful.
It is easy to dismiss such stories as moral
lessons, but the tension it describes
is strikingly modern. Today we are surrounded
by options. Careers promise
money, recognition and lifestyle. Pleasure
is immediate and measurable.
Purpose, however, is slower and more demanding.
It asks for patience and to think
beyond ourselves.
Interestingly, purpose often begins in
personal discomfort. Many of the ventures
we admire today were born out of
frustrations. Airbnb did not begin as a
multinational enterprise. It started when
two young men struggled to afford rent
and wondered whether they could host
strangers on air mattresses in their living
room. A personal inconvenience became a
global solution.
When I was a teenager, I used to visit
a small shop near my house where daily
hawkers gathered. They would talk, drink
tea and prepare for long days of walking
through villages selling their goods. One
day, I asked one of them how he managed
to carry on despite the strain. He walked
under the sun for hours, carrying weight,
negotiating prices, returning home exhausted.
He said that whenever he felt tired he
thought of his son and daughter. His purpose
was to educate them and help them
build a life better than his own. When he
remembered that, he felt strong. Remember,
he did not wake up because the work
was pleasant. He woke up because it was
purposeful.
As collegians standing on the threshold
of your own first flight into the world
beyond campus, you may not have a fully
formed life mission. There is no shame in
that. Purpose often is shaped gradually
through exposure, experimentation and
even failure. Sometimes it begins with simply
asking better questions.
The man in the bus did not need external
music because he carried his own rhythm.
The hawker did not need comfort because
he carried his own reason. In both cases,
what sustained them was the presence of
direction.
For you, the most important question
may not be how high you can fly, but why
you are choosing to fly at all. When fatigue
arrives, it will not be pleasure that keeps
you moving. It will be purpose. And perhaps
the beginning of purpose is simply
this: the courage to ask yourself the question
you would have asked the hawker, and
the honesty to listen to your own answer.