I remember my parents had a maths tutor for me, because they wanted me to be amazing at maths.
I was pretty good at numbers and I had this tutor and he’d tell me: The reason that you are struggling with the next question is because you are always worried about what your parents think.
That really stayed in my had. I was just like, wow,
So as long as I’m trapped about what my parents think, I can actually never find the answers to the real questions of life.
And there were all these little things happening… I lost 2 great friends when I was 16. One girl died in a car accident, one guy died because he was involved in drugs and violence.
That made me rethink everything. I just thought to myself wait a minute, these were beautiful people, people that I loved, people that in my opinion were good people. And I just lost them in a moment.
It was kind of like this escalation of little things that just made me think wait a minute… having money, having fame, this that just doesn’t seem to add up.
And then meeting the monk kind of made that shift possible. As I said he as completely captivating. And then I found out that he’d given up jobs at Google and Microsoft to be a monk.
I thought to myself Who does that? He’s given up everything that I’m chasing, all that my friends are chasing, but he seems happier than anyone I’ve ever met before.
He spoke about this incredible principle where he said that we should plant trees under who’s shade we do not plan to sit.
And he was speaking about this principle of selfless sacrifice. That kind of just penetrated me right there. When he said the words selfless sacrifice for the first time in my life I felt a thrill about something that I never felt before.
I thought wow, giving up everything you have for the service of others sounds like the best thing you could possibly do.
I don’t know why I had that thought, because I wasn’t a spiritual kid growing up. I wasn’t a religious kid growing up. I wasn’t even a good kid growing up. I was just a rebel, a misfit, trying things out
an experimenter, which I still consider myself.
So what I started to do is I was interning at companies and firms and corporates thinking I was getting a grad job afterwards and then I’d spend the rest of my summer holidays interning in India living with him as a monk.
So I’d use all my summer and christmas holidays to just be out there with the monks he introduced me to another 200-500 monks that were just like him. Just as smart, just as bright, giving up everything they had and using all their skills to make the world a better place.
I’ve always had friends who were older than me. I could see a lot of them had successful careers, successful jobs, beautiful partners, but I saw a sense of lack of fulfillment, meaning and purpose in their lives and I’ve always been an observer and I would see these people who were like 5 years older than me, 7 years older than me maybe 10 years older than me and I’d be watching them and go Is that the life I want?
And then meeting the monk kind of made that shift possible. As I said he as completely captivating. And then I found out that he’d given up jobs at Google and Microsoft to be a monk.
I thought to myself Who does that? He’s given up everything that I’m chasing, all that my friends are chasing, but he seems happier than anyone I’ve ever met before.
He spoke about this incredible principle where he said that we should plant trees under who’s shade we do not plan to sit.
And he was speaking about this principle of selfless sacrifice. That kind of just penetrated me right there. When he said the words selfless sacrifice for the first time in my life I felt a thrill about something that I never felt before.
I thought wow, giving up everything you have for the service of others sounds like the best thing you could possibly do.
I don’t know why I had that thought, because I wasn’t a spiritual kid growing up. I wasn’t a religious kid growing up. I wasn’t even a good kid growing up. I was just a rebel, a misfit, trying things out
an experimenter, which I still consider myself.
So I’d use all my summer and christmas holidays to just be out there with the monks he introduced me to another 200-500 monks that were just like him. Just as smart, just as bright, giving up everything they had and using all their skills to make the world a better place.
I’ve always had friends who were older than me. I could see a lot of them had successful careers, successful jobs, beautiful partners, but I saw a sense of lack of fulfillment, meaning and purpose in their lives and I’ve always been an observer and I would see these people who were like 5 years older than me, 7 years older than me maybe 10 years older than me and I’d be watching them and go Is that the life I want?
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