What's your sentence?
Apekshit Khare
Head HR @ Godrej Properties - West East Zone | Economic Times Young Leader | LGBT Leader | Striving to Brighten People's Lives
Week?19 – What’s your sentence?
In the book "Drive," the author shares a powerful concept that he learned, which was inspired by a story where a Congresswoman asked then US President, JF Kennedy, “A great person, is one sentence, what’s yours?”
People, irrespective of their status, JFK or Gandhiji, your boss or someone as awesome as you, should be able to answer this question. If we are clear about the kind of life we want to live, we should be able to simplify our life into one single sentence.
To understand the concept better, I will give some examples, in my view, ?of the ‘one sentence‘ of some key people. ?
·??????Gandhiji’s sentence would be “He led the independence movement for India and worked to create a secular progressive nation”
·??????Abraham Lincoln’s would be “ He ended slavery and preserved the union of USA”
·??????Marie Curie’s would be “She pioneered the research on radioactivity and discovered Radium”
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These are great people with grand and impactful sentences but the concept can be applied to everyone. We each have our own truths, our own reasons to exist, as the French call it our Raison d’être. What is important is that we reflect and arrive at our own One Sentence.
Listing down some simple sentences that I think are equally powerful as Marie Curie’s.
?“He taught many generations of kids how to read”, can be the sentence of a nursery school teacher, who genuinely wants to work with kids and drive positive change with them.
“He raised two kids who grew up to be kind, happy and healthy adults”, can be the sentence of someone who wants to excel at being a parent
“She worked on providing a safe space to LGBT kids when being gay was illegal in India”, is the sentence of someone I know and I found it to be profound and as impactful as anyone else!
These sentences might not appear as grand as some of the historical figures but they reflect the individual’s unique purpose and impact they created in their lives.
I urge all of you to do this exercise, as a good way to orient our life towards our true purpose. At the very least, we would have to face the uncomfortable reality that we might not know what we are doing and what we want to do with our life. Maybe that realisation itself can refocus us towards walking the path to find who we are and what we want to do. Please ask yourself and write the answer, today itself, to “What’s your sentence?”