The other day a student of mine, a bright young man asked me, “Ma’am, if your son asks you why he was born and what is his purpose in life, what would you say to him?” It was an unexpected question. Thoughtfully, I answered: “You were born to love and to be loved, your purpose is to do what you like best, to try out new things, to live with excitement. To do right by your conscience and to help all those around you, to be a flame in the darkness.” My student merely smiled, I did not know if my simple answer had satisfied him. His question led me to think about man’s existence. At different stages of our life we have asked ourselves the purpose and meaning of our actions. It is when we stop asking ourselves questions that we slowly stop living and start to merely exist. Mahatma Gandhi once said: “The main purpose of life is to live rightly, think rightly, act rightly.” Childhood interests are rarely carried into adulthood, because somewhere along the way, we stop talking to our soul. Fear of failure, makes people conform to societal codes. In the words of Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, “This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognised by yourself as a mighty one... the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.” My student will one day walk into the great world and find his answers. For each person must find answers on their own, but for his first question, with the authority of a mother, I will answer, “You were born to be loved and to love.”
- The reader is based in Dubai
