The week is back with its Monday Truclusions and I am back with a small story again. Many of you might have read it before and the moral of it has always been forgiveness to even those who harm you. But today it will give you a different perspective of life. This is how the story goes-
Why Love Is Blind
A long time ago, before the earth and humans existed, virtues and vices were just floating around and were very bored. They didn’t know what to do. That’s when Ingenious came up with an idea to play hide and seek. Everyone liked the idea, when Madness declared that it wanted to count. Nobody was crazy enough to seek Madness, so they agreed. So Madness leaned against a tree and began counting. As it counted, the vices and virtues hid. All the vices and virtues went hiding- except Love. We all know very well how difficult it can be to hide Love.
When Madness finished counting, Love jumped into a rose bush and hid there. When Madness started seeking, it found Laziness first, because it was very lazy to hide. Soon after, Madness found all of them, except Love. Madness’ desperation was only growing because it wasn’t able to find Love. Envious of Love, Envy whispered to Madness that it only needed to find Love, which was hiding amidst the rose bushes.
On getting this information, Madness used a wooden pitch fork and stabbed into the rose bush wildly till he heard a cry. When Love appeared, Madness figured out that it had stabbed out Love’s eyes in the anxiety of finding it. Being Madness, it started wailing out loud that it should die now, because it has no purpose in life, and only creates trouble. Madness was mad at itself.
That’s when Love consoled Madness and told it that whatever has been done cannot be undone, but Madness could be Love’s guide. Since then Love is blind and always accompanied by Madness. Even though Love became blind, it gave Madness a purpose in life.
VR Ferose And His Story Of Purpose
There’s a relation between this story and a different perspective of life that it could give us. But before that I need to tell you one of my experiences with my friend and mentor- Mr. VR Ferose, the senior vice-president of SAP SE. With a career that took him places, he became the MD of his company at an age of 33.
He had a very happy family life being married to the love of his life, Deepali. Life became a bed of roses when their son Vivaan was born. But all hell broke loose when the doctors revealed the heart-breaking truth that Vivaan was on the autism spectrum. That was when an inspiration to the society, an iconic personality, Kiran Bedi stood by him. She being a motherly figure to Ferose advised him something which changed his life.
She told him that now he had a purpose in life which most people in this world lack, and using that purpose, he should bring about a significant change in the society. He slowly came out of his depression and started to take Vivaan to therapy. It was then that it dawned on him that he was in a position where he could afford the treatment. Whereas there are many people in this country who can’t, and so he decided to try and change the situation.
The Beginning Of An Inclusion Movement
Ferose’s mind was working overtime and he thought of doing something that never had been done by anyone. He hired five people in the autistic spectrum as employees, who actually performed way beyond all expectations. So much that it’s now a Harvard case study. All this led to SAP making an iconic announcement that by year 2020, SAP will have 1% of its employee workforce from the autism spectrum.
Now look at the situation like this, Ferose could have easily broken down emotionally. Or at best, taken care of his son and lived an ordinary life. But he chose to make a difference. He didn’t stop at just employing the differently abled at SAP. He started a movement with a vision of making a difference to 10 million differently abled people by 2020. This is the purpose of his life.
He chose to call it the India Inclusion Summit, which is a platform to create awareness and opportunities for the differently abled. I myself am a beneficiary of the IIS. I will tell you more about IIS in the coming weeks.
Finding A Purpose In Life
But thinking about it, we all have had frustrating situations in life where we asked ourselves what the purpose of our life was. There are individuals who have not been able to find solutions to their problems and in frustration have lost their lives. But then there are people who use their energies in the most positive way possible even in a tough scenario, like how Ferose did.
The question that arises here is that when good things happen to us, we don’t ask out loud whether we deserved it. But when we are at the receiving end of something unfavorable, we crib about it endlessly.
I leave you with this week’s Monday Truclusions with some food for thought. So my question to you is that if a vice like Madness in the story can find a purpose in life, can’t we humans do so too?
Reasons
He is a boon to the universe,
But lives his life with a curse;
All the while the sun has to burn,
But for the world hope he does churn.
Look at the wind and how he does blow?
He is the reason the river of life does flow.
Ask why does the cloud burst?
It is to quench the earth’s thirst.
A soldier always lives on the edge of a knife,
To secure others is the purpose of his life.
Every life has a reason,
Life with anyone doesn’t play treason.