Let me begin by warmly congratulating all of you for your accomplishments. But then, nothing less was expected from you, from the very first day you went to school many years back! That morning, your tiny fingers were held by your parents as they stood in front of the kindergarten classroom and then they let go. You went inside the classroom; their eyes moistened, they prayed for you and, even as you did not know that one day you would be here, they knew it.
For all of you here today, it is rightly a time to rejoice in your accomplishment. As you rejoice, do take a moment to think of your parents and pray for them.
They gave you life. Your parents believed in you. So, you are here.
But it was the teacher who actually shaped your intellect over the last two decades of growing up, of learning, of testing the premises and pushing their limits. Today, please also take a moment to appreciate a teacher whose name you no longer remember but whose face is still in the mirror of the mind somewhere beneath a dusty layer. I have mine; I am sure you have yours.
As you enter your new world, you stand on what I want to call a platform; it was built by these two sets of people. One created your body and mind; the other gave you the essential knowledge and the ways you may seek more. Your platform today consists almost entirely of these two things. In its current form, the platform is largely incomplete. For you to make an impact, you will have to build on that platform. For instance, over the next few decades, you will have to build years of work experience on what you have today. Then a day will come when your platform will be defined not just by your own knowledge and experience but by that of your personal and professional network. A certain day will also come when you would realise that a critical component of your platform is not just the network but also your personal net-worth. You will have to save some to create the proverbial nest-egg or the ability to start your own venture. Your net-worth can sometimes determine your risk-taking capacity.
You will also need to build your net-worth because you may want to help others. For, didn't Mother Teresa say, “You must have before you can give”?
Beyond your body, mind, academic accomplishments, your work experience, network and net-worth, one day you would also figure out that in life the structural strength of your platform critically depends on your personal relationship with your spouse and your children. Their love will be the eventual pillar on which the rest of the platform will rest.
Your Platform
So, your platform is truly a critical part of your existence. But there is something beyond it as well.
It is your purpose.
As we start our life and, sometimes, well into it, many of us get so preoccupied with building the platform, that we forget that it is not what makes us complete. A platform, as the meaning of the word suggests, is just a springboard. It is a surface on which you stand to go someplace. Your platform, like a railway platform, is a place from where you need to go someplace. That someplace will be determined by your purpose.
Your platform is not your purpose.
Today’s conversation is on your life ahead, on the Platform and the Purpose. Let me guide you deeper into the subject.
I told you that a platform is a springboard; it is a space from where you need to go someplace else. Your purpose, on the other hand, determines how far that journey will be, for whom it is undertaken and how meaningful it is. There is another way you could look at purpose: It is our purpose that determines the impact we make over time.
Today, you are ready to enter your work life. Over the next four decades or so, you will work, earn, add value, and change your own world and that of others. In the course of it all, you will make a certain impact. No two graduating students will make an identical impact. Both the amount of impact you make and the extent of time over which you make it will vary from individual to individual.
In the end, you will find that life is like a two-by-two matrix in which your existence will be defined by the x coordinate that represents your platform and the y coordinate that represents your purpose. Between these two, there are four quadrants. All of you will find yourself predominantly placed in one of these four in your lives.
There will be some of you whose existence will be called “low platform and low purpose.” There will also be some who would fit into “high platform and a low purpose.” There are some who will live a life best described as “low platform and high purpose.” Only a very few amongst you will go on to lead a life that will be described as “high platform and high purpose.”
All the four options are available in equal measure as you start your life but, as life progresses, you will tend to settle into one or the other. Unlike the first twenty years of life when your parents and teachers could steer you into making the right choices, from now on, you will make the choices and you will also have to live the consequences of the choices you make.
Today, I want to describe to you the characteristics of people in the four quadrants, their driving force and the impact they make in the world.
Low Platform & Low Purpose
This one is easy to relate to. Remember the good-natured boy who studied in your eighth standard class, the one who sat alongside you or in the bench behind? He perhaps decided to join a nearby college even as you were fiercely competitive and made your engineering choices; he picked up an ordinary graduate qualification along the way and has plans to settle down in the family business. Or he is just looking for a job in some local organization where he will stay on for the rest of his life. He will raise a small family, build a reasonable dwelling and remain in relative anonymity.
People who stay here are the vast majority that make the world a predictable, often dependable place to live in. They do not have overly positive or negative influence on life. It is an okay quadrant to be in as long as you are comfortable with its consequences and make no false comparison with others.
High Platform and Low Purpose
Then there are some people who live in the high platform and low purpose quadrant.
This is usually a highly qualified, highly competent set of people who, however, lead a self-serving life. They use their education, experience and contacts to get ahead in life. They rarely risk their high platform because it defines their existence. Their driver is consumption.
Low Platform and High Purpose
This quadrant is for the path-makers, often start-up entrepreneurs, idealists, or social workers. They face hardship, loneliness and lack of immediate results or validation. But they persevere. Their work impacts only a few, yet their drive is to make a difference, to own their destiny.
High Platform and High Purpose
Many of you are already on this platform. Whether you remain here will depend on your choices. This is the space of great visionaries – Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Bill Gates, Ratan Tata. People here use their platform to build institutions, create massive impact, and leave a legacy. They are not owners but custodians of their platform.
Sometimes, life will test you. You may fall. But don’t lose heart – your purpose can rebuild the platform. Like Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy, who founded Aravind Eye Hospital despite losing the use of his fingers, your setbacks may lead to even greater missions.
In closing...
As you move out of the hallowed portals of this great institution, continue to strengthen your platform. But know that the platform is only meant to catch a train; it is not a place to live on.
Life will constantly test you. It may rotate you between quadrants. But the greatest power you have is to choose — and to be conscious of the consequences of your choice.
Go, kiss the world.