The Meaning of Life
[Music]
[Applause]
the dalai lama was once asked
what is the meaning of life he smiled
and answered
not a hard question that’s an easy
question to answer
the meaning of life is happiness
hard question is what makes happiness
is it the car is it the house is it the
money is it the accomplishments
or the friends or is it compassion
and good heart this is something
that every human being must try to
answer
what makes true happiness
it was death my death that made me
wrestle
with this question
the planning to kill myself
by hanging myself from the beams of
a surrey hotel or driving my car into a
large
oak tree or throwing myself off the
balcony of a tall building
and when i finally did decide to kill
myself
one evening lying in my cold empty bed
with a bottle of whiskey and a handful
of pills
and a plastic bag it was my cuddly
affectionate cat tabasco
that jumped on my chest and sat there
purring
and the love that i felt for him
in that moment was what i needed
to stop what i was doing
for that moment i felt hope
could i be happy again could i come back
from that dark abyss
that had been caused by the death of my
beautiful kind husband jeremy in 2016
from a rare form of renal cancer
he was my soul mate the love of my life
and we had fought family opposition and
societal judgment to be
together and we had been together for 19
happy years
in that time i had built an inner
resilience as a result of family
estrangement
struggles at work and with anxiety and
depression
and then jeremy’s cancer diagnosis
and harrowing treatment
i held jeremy’s hand in those last few
moments of his life
the death rattle getting louder and
louder
and his breath getting more labored
i urged him to let go his body was
ravaged
by cancer and his soul did not need it
anymore
and then when he took his last breath
and the life drained out of him
a part of me died too he was gone
and with him all our promises and dreams
of a happy future together
i was alone with my whole life ahead of
me without the love of my life without
my rock without my very
reason for being
jeremy’s death broke me
and for many months after that i shunned
everyone to become a
complete recluse and i turned to
destructive ways of coping
i just wanted to die
and then 18 months after jeremy passed
away my father ashok
also began to lose his battle with
cancer
and i was hit with this huge realization
here i was throwing my life away
and these two men had fought to live but
cancer had got them
i had life i had health i had
youth and i was throwing it away
for what
as my father’s eyes closed for the very
last time
my eyes began to open it was a time of
awakening
i wanted to be happy again i wanted to
live again
i just didn’t know how
you see grief is a merciless master
and it will pull you down to the depths
of despair in its vice-like grip
and in that darkness you think you will
never be happy again
grief is so personal and yet is so
universal
you will all understand this because you
will all have gone through grief and
loss in this past year
covet 19 has caused
job loss loss of financial security
perhaps you have lost your health
physical or mental
or perhaps you have lost someone that
you love to this
awful disease globally
we have lost the freedom to move
the freedom to make connections the
freedom to live what we believe
our normal lives
and all this loss has caused a
collective grief that each and every
person on this globe has felt
how you deal with that grief
will determine how you fare
if you like me turned to alcohol
and painkillers to numb that pain of a
broken heart
or over ate comfort food to fill that
void you were feeling inside you
or turned on the tv or radio to block
out the
sounds the anxiety the chaos
in your head or drown out the relentless
silence around you then you like me
were turning away from grief and not
allowing yourself to heal
you see to truly heal i realized i had
to turn into the grief i had to accept
it i had to acknowledge it
and i had to work through it because if
i didn’t
it would eat me up from inside and leave
me completely depleted
life is hard
it will throw us so many challenges to
which we will respond
between each challenge and each response
is a space and we must learn to use that
space
wisely and mindfully so that our
response serves us best
how you respond to those challenges
will determine whether you survive
whether you thrive or whether you fall
after jeremy’s death i realized that i
had to acknowledge that i was
at my most vulnerable
but from this vulnerability comes great
courage
i had to acknowledge the devastating
pain that had been caused
but from that place of pain comes
compassion
i had to accept that these wounds were
being inflicted on me for a reason
and only then would i gain wisdom
i had to build on that inner resilience
that i had
harnessed over the years so that i could
move forward with my life with new
beginnings
and a new life
but before i could build my life i had
to build every aspect of myself
my mind my body my spirit
and so i turned to different techniques
for the mind i did mindfulness
and acceptance and gratitude for the
body
nutrition and sleep and exercise
and for the spirit
altruism connection
and compassion
and as i practiced and learned these
techniques
i realized that you don’t
find happiness you create happiness you
cultivate it cultivating happiness is
not just about positive thinking it’s
about positive action
to create that deep contentment that we
all so desire
within us
i realize that when jeremy died
i was living with the regrets of the
past and the fears of the future i
regretted not
saying something to him or doing
something for him and a life without him
a future without him
was paralyzing in its fear
and so i turned to mindfulness
and as i sat there aware of my body and
my breath
i became aware of my thoughts and my
emotions
and i realized i had to start processing
that grief that was within me
and i did
i cried i shouted i ranted i
wept i screamed and then
when i was spent i sat still in silence
and then i did it all over again day
after day after day
it was exhausting
but then over time the silence and the
stillnesses grew longer and longer
and in those meditative moments i even
began to smile and laugh at some of
those
experiences and memories i had had with
jeremy
he had a fantastic sense of humor quite
dark
in those last few days as we were
planning his funeral he said to me
when my coffin goes through the curtain
to be cremated
i want you to play that song from our
favorite film
dirty dancing now i’m having the time of
my life
many of you will know that song i looked
at him in disbelief
why on earth would you want that song i
said
and with a cheeky grin he said
because i will be having the time of my
life up there
thanks a lot you cheeky beggar you’ve
left me here to deal with this
but you see that’s just it because every
time i think of jeremy’s funeral and his
cremation
i am i am left with a sense of peace
because i know
that he is okay and that he is having
the time of his life
and perhaps it was this knowledge that
made me realize that
i wanted to live the best version of my
life down here
so that when i did see him again and i
will see him again
i can tell him that i built that
mountain cabin in your name
on the equator in nanuki
and that i did learn to ride a motorbike
on the streets of surrey
and that i did have my own radio show in
nairobi
and that i did drive that took took
around the island of sri lanka
and as i had these amazing life-changing
experiences i was filled with a sense of
gratitude
and so i began to write in my gratitude
journal every day
and this simple act of giving thanks
made me realize
just how much i had and not how much i
had lost
if each and every one of us here gave
thanks
for what we had we would cultivate so
much happiness
human connection became a big part of my
healing
because without it i was drowning in the
meaninglessness of it all
when we are connected to one another we
are connected to our very own souls
and when we nourish connections we
nourish ourselves
and each other altruism
the act of giving is hardwired in us
as a species
that act of giving to someone else
and creating a bond with no expectation
of a reward is rewarding itself
as a way to channel my grief i
set up an education fund in jeremy’s
name
and we now support 15 children through
secondary
and tertiary education in northern kenya
what could you do to make someone’s life
just that bit happier
because believe me it will come back
tenfold
compassion the act
of kindness and spirit of generosity to
people animals and the environment was
so important
but compassion must start with the self
looking after oneself eating well
sleeping well
but also giving oneself gratitude and
self love
and as my compassion for myself and
others grew i realized i had to make
sense of this loss that i was feeling
and so i trained as an end-of-life doula
someone who sits with
the terminally ill as they transition
from this life to whatever is next
perhaps helping with funeral
arrangements or
legalities of death or just listening to
them
as they talk about their fears of dying
or holding their hand
as they take their last breath so that
no one dies alone if they don’t want to
if i could do that for jeremy then i
could definitely do it for anyone else
holding space
for someone in need
is such a humbling experience
it makes us realize what is important in
life
and so using all these techniques i
began to heal
i began to believe in life again and i
began to believe in myself
again and i began to believe that the
path i was on was the one i was supposed
to be on
i began to realize what the meaning of
life was
and if we are looking at the big picture
what could be bigger than the meaning of
life
you must decide what the meaning of life
is for you
and if it is simply to be happy as the
dalai lama says
then it is up to you to cultivate that
happiness
it is up to you to embrace the grief of
loss that you will definitely encounter
in this lifetime and change
that vulnerability and pain
into courage and compassion
i believe that the big picture
and the meaning of life is about
being happy today
every day now
being happy is the decision that we make
a brave one
in the face of and as a response to all
challenges that life will throw us every
single moment
the big picture
is being happy
the big picture is now
thank you
bye