[Music]
I just wanted to share about that when I
first became a teacher as a teacher you
have to sit there without any particular
students right and maybe hit a woman
here before our teachers or even all
your professors would agree that
teaching is the best profession in the
world not because of what you teach but
everything that you get to learn his
lessons that I’ve learned in my life one
the first thing is about the purpose of
life how many of you think you know what
the purpose of life is not so many how
many of you are curious what the purpose
of life is yeah quite a few okay awesome
I’m gonna tell you the purpose of life
ready the purpose of life is to seek and
spread happiness everything that we do
as human beings is in that pursuit of
happiness whether it’s hanging out with
friends whether it’s attending TED Talks
whether it’s spending time with their
family whether it’s learning whatever it
is it’s in the eventual pursuit of
happiness and even when you think about
oh I want to make money why do you want
to do that so that you can be happy oh I
want to learn why do you want to do that
so you can be happy right and I believe
that these lessons are best learned from
people who really embody this so I would
like to share the story of pinky who was
one of our girls who came to Kranthi at
age 13 and she’d been trafficked and
actually sold at the age of nine and she
has a lot of severe mental health issues
and she’s one of those girls who never
will be considered successful by the
world but when I look at pinky all I see
is that she spends 90% of her day
laughing and making all the people
around her laugh and when I look at her
I realized that despite everything that
she’s been through and everything that
she’s faced her entire life she still
has the ability to spend the majority of
her day laughing and spreading happiness
to everyone around her and for that I’m
really incredibly thankful to to pinky
the second thing I’ve learned is about
success what is success I think success
should be measured in the number of
lives that we positively impact
I would like to share the lesson that
I’ve learned from Sheetal she thought
came to us at age 17 and she had only
studied in 4th and 7th at that point and
would try to put her through 10th
and she kept failing so eventually we
let her put academics aside and pursue
what her passion was which was drumming
so he applied to music schools all over
India and nobody would accept her
because they said she hasn’t passed
tenth she doesn’t speak English well
enough she you know she won’t fit into
the social class so then we applied
abroad and she funded up getting a full
scholarship to study drumming and music
in Washington for a year so she ended up
going to Washington and spending a year
there and when she came back she she now
works as a music therapist working with
kids using the djembe to do drum circles
and Pune actually and she works with an
organization called the link and she has
been doing you know
drumming circles for kids particularly
from NGOs and to me when I look at
success to me success is the smile on
she throws face when she’s drumming and
the smile on the kids faces when they
hold a drum for the first time and I
know that when I look at Sheetal she’s
never going to be considered successful
by the regular world right she has
passed 12th since then I’m sorry I’m
having a hard time saying all this
because she thought is right in front of
me sitting here in the front row
so she thought thank you for teaching me
about success um the third thing that I
have learned is what a meaningful life
is and I think that we’re all looking
for meaning in our lives but we’re never
going to find it until we learned that
our life has a bigger meaning beyond
ourselves and as long as we’re pursuing
things just for ourselves we’re never
going to be happy enough and this I’ve
actually learned from all the sex
workers that I’ve worked with over the
past five six years these women do sex
work because they want their they want
their kids to study in English they want
their kids to live anywhere besides come
on where the red-light area they want
their kids to have office jobs and be
happy and when these sex workers wake up
every day they go to work every single
day because they’re living for somebody
that’s beyond themselves and I could
never in my life possibly thank those
sex workers for what I’ve learned you
know I think when we go out to do to do
charity work or do social work we always
have this concept of something that
we’re giving but I think that every
single one of these stories just shows
to me that it’s all about what you what
you receive and what you learn so
probably wondering what someone with an
American accent is doing in the red
light area of Mumbai and I am from
America and I did grow up in a house
with you know the American dream
we had a gigantic house two cars in the
garage and we even had a cat and my
house was full of domestic violence and
abuse and both of my parents had mental
illnesses my mom has schizophrenia and
my father was bipolar and some of my
earliest childhood memories are of my
parents burning each other with irons
and even as a very young kid as a 9 10
11 year old you know stuck in that house
I was just constantly looking around
thinking if this is what the American
Dream is and what we’re all taught in
school right why do you need to do well
in school so you can go to a good
college why do you need to go to good
college so you can have a nice job why
do you need that nice job so you can
have a nice house bla bla bla bla
now I had all of those things in front
of me and yet nobody in my house was
happy so at a very young age I started
kind of this quest for figuring out you
know what is it what is it that brings
happiness
if it’s not these things and eventually
that was what led me to the red light
area of Mumbai which actually led me to
quite a few different NGOs all around
the world I’ve traveled over 100
countries and spent a lot of time
volunteering and funnily enough you know
what I found that it is people like
those sex workers in commando para and
it is kids you know in NGOs all across
the world who are some of the happiest
people I’ve ever encountered regardless
of the fact that they don’t have what we
consider the basics of life so my
lessons I would like to leave you with
those lessons today which is basically
about seeking and spreading happiness
the purpose of life I think is to seek
and spread happiness I would like to
encourage all of you to find what makes
you happy and go out and seek in spread
happiness I would like to encourage all
of you to redefine success successes not
lay in our houses and our cars and our
phones and all of those things it lays
in you know the number positive lives
that you impact and third to go out and
live a meaningful life because as long
as we’re living for ourselves we’re
never going to find meaning so thank you
very much and please seek and spread
happiness
we have Alex Peter and it let’s get a
lot of what we have coming in God –
Ellie who’s going to talk if you see
each other soon fell into policy but
she’s very eager to make it and I’m sure
it was
one success in what happiness is
so here we have
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
hello
[Applause]
and I’m not drunk but the doctor look at
me was he had my mom six different times
in six different directions
suffocating poor come–it problems as a
result I have to wrinkle open which mean
I shake all the time look it’s not
genetic it’s not a birth defect you
can’t catch it
no one put a curse on my mother’s uterus
and I didn’t even answer most customers
which they are
I just wanted to share about that when I
first became a teacher as a teacher you
have to sit there without any particular
students right and maybe hit a woman
here before our teachers or even all
your professors would agree that
teaching is the best profession in the
world not because of what you teach but
everything that you get to learn his
lessons that I’ve learned in my life one
the first thing is about the purpose of
life how many of you think you know what
the purpose of life is not so many how
many of you are curious what the purpose
of life is yeah quite a few okay awesome
I’m gonna tell you the purpose of life
ready the purpose of life is to seek and
spread happiness everything that we do
as human beings is in that pursuit of
happiness whether it’s hanging out with
friends whether it’s attending TED Talks
whether it’s spending time with their
family whether it’s learning whatever it
is it’s in the eventual pursuit of
happiness and even when you think about
oh I want to make money why do you want
to do that so that you can be happy oh I
want to learn why do you want to do that
so you can be happy right and I believe
that these lessons are best learned from
people who really embody this so I would
like to share the story of pinky who was
one of our girls who came to Kranthi at
age 13 and she’d been trafficked and
actually sold at the age of nine and she
has a lot of severe mental health issues
and she’s one of those girls who never
will be considered successful by the
world but when I look at pinky all I see
is that she spends 90% of her day
laughing and making all the people
around her laugh and when I look at her
I realized that despite everything that
she’s been through and everything that
she’s faced her entire life she still
has the ability to spend the majority of
her day laughing and spreading happiness
to everyone around her and for that I’m
really incredibly thankful to to pinky
the second thing I’ve learned is about
success what is success I think success
should be measured in the number of
lives that we positively impact
I would like to share the lesson that
I’ve learned from Sheetal she thought
came to us at age 17 and she had only
studied in 4th and 7th at that point and
would try to put her through 10th
and she kept failing so eventually we
let her put academics aside and pursue
what her passion was which was drumming
so he applied to music schools all over
India and nobody would accept her
because they said she hasn’t passed
tenth she doesn’t speak English well
enough she you know she won’t fit into
the social class so then we applied
abroad and she funded up getting a full
scholarship to study drumming and music
in Washington for a year so she ended up
going to Washington and spending a year
there and when she came back she she now
works as a music therapist working with
kids using the djembe to do drum circles
and Pune actually and she works with an
organization called the link and she has
been doing you know
drumming circles for kids particularly
from NGOs and to me when I look at
success to me success is the smile on
she throws face when she’s drumming and
the smile on the kids faces when they
hold a drum for the first time and I
know that when I look at Sheetal she’s
never going to be considered successful
by the regular world right she has
passed 12th since then I’m sorry I’m
having a hard time saying all this
because she thought is right in front of
me sitting here in the front row
so she thought thank you for teaching me
about success um the third thing that I
have learned is what a meaningful life
is and I think that we’re all looking
for meaning in our lives but we’re never
going to find it until we learned that
our life has a bigger meaning beyond
ourselves and as long as we’re pursuing
things just for ourselves we’re never
going to be happy enough and this I’ve
actually learned from all the sex
workers that I’ve worked with over the
past five six years these women do sex
work because they want their they want
their kids to study in English they want
their kids to live anywhere besides come
on where the red-light area they want
their kids to have office jobs and be
happy and when these sex workers wake up
every day they go to work every single
day because they’re living for somebody
that’s beyond themselves and I could
never in my life possibly thank those
sex workers for what I’ve learned you
know I think when we go out to do to do
charity work or do social work we always
have this concept of something that
we’re giving but I think that every
single one of these stories just shows
to me that it’s all about what you what
you receive and what you learn so
probably wondering what someone with an
American accent is doing in the red
light area of Mumbai and I am from
America and I did grow up in a house
with you know the American dream
we had a gigantic house two cars in the
garage and we even had a cat and my
house was full of domestic violence and
abuse and both of my parents had mental
illnesses my mom has schizophrenia and
my father was bipolar and some of my
earliest childhood memories are of my
parents burning each other with irons
and even as a very young kid as a 9 10
11 year old you know stuck in that house
I was just constantly looking around
thinking if this is what the American
Dream is and what we’re all taught in
school right why do you need to do well
in school so you can go to a good
college why do you need to go to good
college so you can have a nice job why
do you need that nice job so you can
have a nice house bla bla bla bla
now I had all of those things in front
of me and yet nobody in my house was
happy so at a very young age I started
kind of this quest for figuring out you
know what is it what is it that brings
happiness
if it’s not these things and eventually
that was what led me to the red light
area of Mumbai which actually led me to
quite a few different NGOs all around
the world I’ve traveled over 100
countries and spent a lot of time
volunteering and funnily enough you know
what I found that it is people like
those sex workers in commando para and
it is kids you know in NGOs all across
the world who are some of the happiest
people I’ve ever encountered regardless
of the fact that they don’t have what we
consider the basics of life so my
lessons I would like to leave you with
those lessons today which is basically
about seeking and spreading happiness
the purpose of life I think is to seek
and spread happiness I would like to
encourage all of you to find what makes
you happy and go out and seek in spread
happiness I would like to encourage all
of you to redefine success successes not
lay in our houses and our cars and our
phones and all of those things it lays
in you know the number positive lives
that you impact and third to go out and
live a meaningful life because as long
as we’re living for ourselves we’re
never going to find meaning so thank you
very much and please seek and spread
happiness
we have Alex Peter and it let’s get a
lot of what we have coming in God –
Ellie who’s going to talk if you see
each other soon fell into policy but
she’s very eager to make it and I’m sure
it was
one success in what happiness is
so here we have
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
hello
[Applause]
and I’m not drunk but the doctor look at
me was he had my mom six different times
in six different directions
suffocating poor come–it problems as a
result I have to wrinkle open which mean
I shake all the time look it’s not
genetic it’s not a birth defect you
can’t catch it
no one put a curse on my mother’s uterus
and I didn’t even answer most customers
which they are
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