In society, we find that those who are truly happy have somehow found their purpose in life. If you are anything like me, finding your purpose sounds easier said than done, right?
In this article, we are honored to have Dr. Sanjiv Chopra share his journey and thoughts on how one finds their purpose and achieves lasting happiness.
Dr. Sanjiv Chopra is a professor at Harvard Medical School. He’s authored over ten books, including exciting titles such as ‘Leadership’ and, more recently, ‘The Two Most Important Days Are How to Find Your Purpose and Live a Happier and Healthier Life.
Watch this Podcast on YouTube: Unlocking The Key To Success and Lasting Happiness | Sanjiv Chopra
How did you decide to become a doctor? Where did your health care journey begin?
So I grew up all over India. My father, Dr. Kal Chopra, Lieutenant Colonel Kal Chopra, was in the Army Medical Corps, and every three years, he got posted to a different town. So we packed our bags, joined a new school, and traveled all over India. We finished our schooling in New Delhi. Christian Brothers, a boys’ school, is arguably the preeminent all-boys school in India. Since my father was in a town 200 miles away, we stayed with his younger brother and wife.
I was 12 years of age on a warm, very sultry, hot weekend. I played a cricket match. I’m reading Reader’s Digest on Sunday evening, and I started not feeling well. I then took a nap and probably woke up 30 to 40 minutes later. I opened my eyes and was terrified. Everything is dark. I can’t see.
I said, Deepak, I can’t see. Deepak tried to see if I was faking it. When he realized that I wasn’t, he started to cry. My uncle took me to the military hospital in Delhi, where the doctors examined me, and they didn’t have the foggiest idea of what was happening. I could hear them talking, and they were talking about maybe it’s hysterical blindness. Finally, they got a hold of my Father.
It is 1961. My father’s in an army Jeep 200 miles away. Very calmly, he says, Tell me everything that’s happened over the last two months. The doctors said he’s been fine. He said I needed to know everything. Any injuries, accidents, and medications? They said, oh, yes. He had an injury to his right leg with a sharp object about six days ago, he was taken to the casualty ward, which is the equivalent of an emergency room, and he got stitches.
For days, my father continued to ask questions. Did he get an antibiotic? Did he get a tetanus shot? Very proudly, they said yes. He was given a tetanus shot. I have no idea how my father divined it; he said to them that Sanjiv is having a rare, idiosyncratic reaction to the tetanus serum. This reaction occurs in one and a quarter or one in half a million people and causes severe bilateral optic neuritis. Start intravenous and give him massive doses of corticosteroid.
Twelve hours later, my vision returned. I remember vividly looking around the hospital room. I saw the green walls, and I said. The next day, I said, You know what? I want to be a doctor like my father.
I’ve told this story to professors of ophthalmology at Harvard, at UCLA, at Johns Hopkins, and they say, Oh my God, that probably wasn’t even a footnote in the ophthalmology textbooks at that time. If your father had not intervened urgently, Sanjiv, you could have been permanently visually impaired or blind. So that’s how I decided to go into medicine.
How does one find their purpose in life?
Everything I do in life has to be aligned with my purpose. If it’s not, it doesn’t matter how much fame or money or fortune that opportunity provides; those opportunities are just distractions.
Mark Twain said, the two most important days in your life are the day you’re born, and the day you find out why.
What’s your purpose in life? And my contention is that the happiest people on this planet have four things in common. They have a cadre of good friends and family, the ability to forgive, doing things for others, and the fourth one is gratitude. With gratitude in your life, you will be abundant. Happiness is more than the sum total of happy moments and in order for you and me to have sustained happiness, we have to find our purpose in life and live it.
When did you find that purpose? Was that something that you actively worked on?
I always focused on achieving academic success, and I believe that if you were successful, you’d be happy. But it’s the other way around. Albert Schweitzer, physician, theologian, humanitarian, and Nobel laureate, once said, success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. That really sunk into me. I said I’ve been focusing too much on academic success, physical, financial, family, social, and spiritual. I should now focus more on happiness and define my purpose in life.
One day I was having a coffee with a dear friend, Adrian Wilkins. He said Sanjiv; you are a professor, a dean. You wrote this book, that book, and won this award. I said, Adrian, where’s this conversation going? You already know all of this. And he looked at me and said, this is about 15 years ago. What is your purpose in life? I said what, not knowing how to answer him. After Adrian left, I sat on the deck, got a lovely cup of coffee, and it came to me, and I wrote down my purpose in life.
So I think people come to find their purpose in life by reflecting, which is what I did, and the purpose came to me right away. Or some people experience something horrific in life, and they have the fortitude, the grit, the compassion, and they love to say this is unacceptable. I’m going to try and make a difference here, and they start very small. The next thing you know, it’s become their purpose in life. And 40 years later, they’re still doing it.
Watch this Podcast on YouTube: Unlocking The Key To Success and Lasting Happiness | Sanjiv Chopra
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