So how can one go about doing good?”
“I’m simply saying that
you should make it a priority to change your world view so that you stop
seeing yourself purely as an individual and start seeing yourself as
part of the collective.”
“So I should become kinder and gentler?”
“Realise
that the most noble thing you can do is to give to others. The sages of
the East call it the process of ‘shedding the shackles of self.’ It is
all about losing your self-consciousness and starting to focus on a
higher purpose. This might be in the form of giving more to those around
you, whether this means your time or your energy: these truly are your
two most valuable resources. It could be something as major as taking a
one-year sabbatical to work with the poor or something as minor as
letting a few cars pass in front of you in the middle of a crushing
traffic jam. It might sound corny, but if there is one thing that I have
learned it is that your life moves to a more magical dimension when you
start striving to make the world a better place. Yogi Raman said that
when we are born, we are crying while the world rejoices. He suggested
that we should live our lives in such a way that when we die, the world
cries while we are rejoicing.”
I knew Julian had a point. One of
the things that was starting to bother me about practising law was that I
didn’t really feel I was making the sort of contribution I knew I was
capable of making. Sure I had the privilege of litigating a number of
precedent-setting cases that had advanced a number of good causes. But
law had become a business for me rather than a labour of love. I was an
idealist in law school like so many of my contemporaries. Over cold
coffee and stale pizza in our dorm rooms, we had planned to change the
world. Almost 20 years have passed since then, and my burning desire to
advocate change has given way to my burning desire to pay off my
mortgage and build up my retirement fund. I realised, for the first time
in a long while, that I had ensconced myself in a middle-class cocoon,
one that sheltered me from society at large and one I had grown
accustomed to.
“Let me share an old story with you that might
really hit home.” Julian continued. “There was once a feeble old woman
whose loving husband died. So she went to live with her son and his wife
and daughter. Every day, the woman’s sight grew worse and her hearing
grew worse. Some days her hands trembled so badly the peas on her plate
rolled onto the floor and the soup ran from her cup. Her son and his
wife couldn’t help but be annoyed at the mess she made and one day they
said enough was enough. So they set up a little table for the old woman
in a corner next to the broom closet and made her eat all of her meals
there, alone. She would look at them at mealtimes with tear-filled eyes
from across the room, but they hardly talked to her while they ate,
except to scold her for dropping a spoon or a fork.
“One evening,
just before dinner, the little girl was sitting on the floor playing
with her building blocks. ‘What are you making?’ her father asked
earnestly. ‘I’m building a little table for you and mother,’ she said,
‘so you can eat by yourselves in the corner someday when I get big.’ The
father and mother were moved to silence for what seemed like an
eternity. Then they started to weep. In that instant they became aware
of the nature of their actions and the sadness they had caused. That
night they led the old woman back to her rightful place at their big
dinner table and from that day on she ate all her meals with them. And
when a little morsel of food fell off the table or a fork strayed onto
the floor, nobody seemed to mind anymore.
“In this story, the
parents were not bad people,” Julian said. “They simply needed the spark
of awareness to light their candle of compassion. Compassion and daily
acts of kindness make life far richer. Take the time to meditate every
morning on the good you will do for others during your day. The sincere
words of praise to those who least expect it, the gestures of warmth
offered to friends in need, the small tokens of affection to members of
your family for no reason at all, all add up to a much more wonderful
way to live. And speaking of friendships, make sure you keep them in
constant repair. A person with three solid friends is very wealthy
indeed.”
I nodded.
“Friends add humor, fascination and
beauty to life. There are few things more rejuvenating than sharing a
belly-bursting laugh with an old friend.”
Julian quickly caught himself. “However, regret is not an activity for which I have any time.’”
I
had always viewed Julian as a sort of super-human legal gladiator,
crunching through the arguments of his opponents as a martial artist
does through a stack of heavily reinforced boards. I could see that the
man I had met many years ago had been transformed into one of a very
different nature. The one in front of me was gentle, kind and peaceful.
He seemed secure in who he was and in his role in the theatre of life.
Like no other person I had ever met, he seemed to see the pain of his
past as a wise, old teacher and yet at the same time, he served notice
that his life was far more than the sum of events gone by. Robin Sharma
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