{"id":4642,"date":"2015-02-12T13:01:17","date_gmt":"2015-02-12T07:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dorjegurung.com\/blog\/?p=4642"},"modified":"2026-03-13T22:07:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T22:07:11","slug":"for-a-meaningful-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/2015\/02\/for-a-meaningful-life\/","title":{"rendered":"…For a Meaningful Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Continuing with my mission to inspire<\/a> the next generation of youngsters — both Nepalese<\/a> and others<\/a> — I have been making presentations at schools about my life, compassion, international understanding, world peace and making life meaningful. What follows are the important points I made at a presentation I recently made to the A-level students (high school juniors and seniors) at ACE Institute of Management in Kathmandu.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I talked about coming from Tangbe<\/a>, Mustang and what that meant socially<\/a>, the living conditions in both the village and Pokhara, and how I had attended government schools before ending up at St. Xavier’s in Kathmandu because of a teacher at one of those schools.<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At St. Xavier’s my North American teachers “provided me with the drive to imagine a world and life different from home.” My dreams to go abroad for tertiary education led me to the United World College of the Adriatic<\/a> (UWCAD) where I was at the receiving end of incredible kindness and generosities.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following UWCAD, I ended up at Grinnell College<\/a>, after which I dreamt of going to see the world<\/a>. As luck would have it, I ended up being able to do just that.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In between I  returned home periodically to…<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

keep myself from losing my way\u2026my way back to the beginning\u2026to where my life\u2019s adventure had begun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the mean time, the educational opportunities<\/a> I had, the professional experience<\/a> I had, the travel<\/a> opportunities…what I experienced, what I did, what I saw\u2026 what I had been given, and rewarded with, by people I had studied, taught, worked and traveled with\u2026all those privileges I had had\u2026they had all been beyond the wildest imagination of the 1981, fifth grade school-kid in Kathmandu, Nepal, dreaming of going abroad<\/a> for studies and making something of himself!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not surprisingly, therefore, even as I was doing everything I felt I needed to, to maintain my connection and ties to where I came from, those experiences would transform me into a person I hadn\u2019t imagined then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the important transformations was that of thinking of myself as a human being FIRST, and then everything else\u2026all aspects of my identity (ethnicity, nationality etc.) coming next!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"human<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s more, countries now represent more faces, people and humanity than political and geographical entities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other result of my incredible international education and travel was drawing certain conclusions about life and the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s one of the first ones:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"meaning<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At the core of that is the confirmation I felt I got for my belief in compassion<\/a>, a Buddhist belief, and living by its dictates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, having been born a Buddhist in a country populated by Hindus and therefore following Hindu cultural norms and practices, while some times being taught by Christians at a Jesuit school, having gotten a high school diploma in a Catholic country, and worked in two Islamic countries etc. — I have also realized the following about beliefs:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ayer's<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One could make ones life meaningful by living according to a certain set of beliefs<\/a>, BUT not insist or require or demand that others ALSO believe them and live by them!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having been born into a low economic background in Nepal and everything else that followed, the following is abundantly clear to me now:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"boy<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And those core values are none other than kindness, generosity and compassion, in other words humanity, that which I came across all through my life, that which I was a beneficiary of pretty much all my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I also came to realize, having experienced poverty and having seen this all over the world, everywhere, is this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"making<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I met this porter on a trek to my village, somewhere between Tatopani and Jomsom, way back in the Spring of 2000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man’s load was so heavy that he took maybe a step every two seconds. But because he was so poor and got paid so little, he carried his own food and cooking utensils to save as much as he could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The poorest and some of the hardest working people on this planet have the hardest time even putting a meal — a decent single meal — on the table for themselves and their children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, these very people, the weakest and the most vulnerable — the poor, the marginalized and their children — are often treated the worst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I, however, have believed the following for a long time:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"most<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Some of the weakest and the most vulnerable in Nepal are the children of poor families, children of Dalits<\/a>, the untouchables, children of marginalized groups<\/a> such as Tamangs and Tharus, especially girls!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, in March 2013, I had finally decided to return home for good to help vulnerable Nepalese children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Except\u2026I would take minor a detour.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I went on to describe my ordeal in Qatar<\/a> and how once again humanity came to my rescue. I described my experience inside the jail<\/a> and went on to identify the accident of birth<\/a> and\/or poverty as the source of some such unjust sufferings. Following descriptions of the specifics of what I do — through COMMITTED<\/a> and independently<\/a> — to right some of those injustices, I went on to describe why I do what I do.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Here in Nepal, I do them for two reasons:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Firstly, to ensure that those children realize their dreams and have, if even on a small scale, the kind of incredible life I have had \u2014 namely, to see and learn about this marvelous world we live in and the people we share it with.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Secondly, and more importantly, to ensure that they do not experience the suffering, the pain and the injustices I have experienced, which they invariably will — especially little girls and Dalit children — if no one does anything about their situation.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    While those are the reasons for my work in Nepal, in general I do them to promote international understanding and contribute to peace in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I believe our feelings for fellow human beings, our compassion and empathy<\/a> for fellow human beings, our ability to see ourselves in the shoes of fellow human beings suffering from injustices, and working to alleviate them will contribute to making the world a better place, a more peaceful place, a goal of United World College<\/a> education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"UWC<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    And that brings me to you, all of you gathered here today\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Having made it this far, you have already accomplished a great deal compared to most of our countrymen. Having completed SLC<\/a>, as you can see from the histogram, you are a member of a small minority of Nepalese!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    And once you finish your A-level studies, you\u2019ll be a member of an even smaller and elite group!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In other words, you have had — and will probably continue to have — opportunities that most Nepalese don\u2019t and probably won\u2019t for a while still.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    So therefore, the network and connections you have established and will invariably continue to establish — because of your privileged birth and opportunities — you will have opportunities, connections and power in your life that many other Nepalese won\u2019t. How you use those opportunities, connections, and power will be entirely up to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"meaning<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    My hope however is that you will use them to make your life meaningful\u2026just as I have tried and continue to try to do.
    \nThank you!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    * * * * * * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Update January 1, 2017<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    The two histograms have been replaced with the correct ones. The original (which you can see here<\/a> and here<\/a>) showed the percentage relative to those who were literate<\/em>, instead of relative to the whole population of five and older<\/em>. Hence the percentage are smaller in these.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    There is no such thing as the meaning of life. You make life meaningful by the way you live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":5785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[197],"tags":[105,47,106,199,191,139,243,195,221],"class_list":["post-4642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-presentations-and-speeches","tag-caste-based-discrimination","tag-compassion","tag-discrimination","tag-humanity","tag-international-understanding","tag-poverty","tag-presentations-in-nepal","tag-uwcad","tag-world-peace"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/meaningful-life.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Jbro-1cS","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4642"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29870,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4642\/revisions\/29870"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}