Don't wait, find your Ikigai | Gangadharan Menon | TEDxSIESCASC

Hello, good morning, I will begin my talk with a slide that is a cartoon. It is a cartoon that is almost existential in nature. It talks about our situation. There are two children. Yes, there is a boy and a girl and the girl is playing what we call house, house and the girl. ask the child what do you want to be when you give up not when you grow up because half or maybe sometimes all of our life is spent doing things that we are not supposed to do or that we do not like growing up doing what our parents want us to do or what our neighbors want us to do or what society wants us to do or what our peers want us to do we don't really want to do it and we waste our entire lives doing what others want to do.

So how do you do it right? How do you avoid battle? The Japanese have a word to describe it. They call him the disgusting guy. The disgusting guy is actually a confluence of four different things. What you do. Are you passionate about it? Are you good at it? Can you make a decent living doing it? And, more importantly, does the world need it? If all these four things happen, they kind of come together. You've found

your

guide et, so all my talk today is. about how to

find

your

easy guide, how did i

find

my guy for example?

It was a strange incident that made me see my tea boy or find my IT boy. I'll tell you a little about my background. I studied in a school which had Malayalam as medium language till 4th class, from 5th class it became English and Malayalam continued as my second language, Hindi as my third language, when I started studying in Ruya, I did my master's degree in English, I learned Marathi so I could write in four different languages ​​and I could speak in four different languages ​​that really complicated my life because I started writing in these languages ​​acting on location directing plays I was a school teacher for a while I gave my voice to the division of documentaries and films I did all kinds of things and at the age of 26 I was really confused I didn't know what to do with my life because I could do so many things I actually wanted to be a teacher I couldn't get a job I wanted to be a journalist I couldn't get a job I accidentally landed in the advertising and I liked it for 28 years I continued in this field of advertising as a copywriter until one day what happened was that I met an elephant in the jungles of madama lied just on the outskirts of madama Malaya actually a place called Messina good night he was already there inside the forest.

I walked 3 kilometers towards it and there was my cousin Manu Menon who was with me and a guide, so three of us went into the forest to basically photograph the wildlife and there he was

wait

ing. For me he didn't know if he had come to shoot or had come to shoot so he decided to attack and started running in chronological order so the guide was 32 he was the first my cousin who was 14 he was the second I was 52 I was third , so I was an easy target for an elephant, if you know what I mean, then the elephant Gordon put on my back, in the small of my back, it was a deep cut.

I had to travel enough hours by car to get to Kun or wherever. They put 18 stitches in my back and I survived. It serves to tell the story of how he survived an elephant. What happened was I met a guy named Ice Isaak, he, Carissa, butterfly, bein ASIS expert. I met him in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, the forest in our own city. and as we were walking towards sally mally point, this is the highest point of sanjay gandhi national park, i casually said to him, isaac, you know what happened. I survived an elephant attack. Here he said, what are you saying?

Thirty years I've been in the conservation field I haven't heard of a single guy who survived an elephant attack and came back to tell the story, why don't you write about it? That kind of didn't ring a bell for 28 years. He was writing for someone else. He was writting. for advertising agencies I finally said this is my second birth it's every day a bonus let me do exactly what I want to do I didn't know the word et guys then but I realized two of the best things that happened in my life: one happened when I was 21, when I was teaching at a school for Manya, the second one happened when I was 23.

I made a documentary about Silent Valley that helped preserve that forest forever, even now it's them, the documentary was one of the many reasons why that forest is preserved, so I said, let me go back to my roots and do exactly what I want to do, which is teach and travel, so I finally got a job as a teacher. I teach at an art school called Retinas Answer and do photography and tribal writing. which is basically my first love of 10 seconds, which is my guide, although I have around 120 articles published in leading newspapers in India, two of which have become two books that I have published, one an evergreen.

I'll show you quickly. the photographs because it has 30 articles and 55 photographs some photographs I will show you all these were taken by me and the articles were written by me these are just the photographs this is actually a human form that I found in a tree inside the Valley the second book is a book called driftwood tales that has mainly wildlife but only 70% the rest are anthropological stories and stories about tribes and historical places and all that that book is in black and white it has 36 articles or stories I call this a step of zebra I found it in Tanzania this is actually very interesting in this in Malaysia there is a cave that is approximately 320 feet high and 200 feet wide it is supposed to be the largest cave in the entire world 25 lakh bats 25 lakh but come on I leave the cave every day and go 20 kilometers away to feed overnight and come back the next day in the morning, so I found a type of wave that happens in waves one after another, so I found a wave that It actually looks like a bird.

It was a fluke or an accident, so my point is, don't make things happen, but when they are about to happen, don't stop them. Many times you know when it is about to happen in the wilds of India. Yes, actually, there is a beautiful poem by Kabir. says da da Romana the rays of the good path Molly CJ Sagara, rich wife, says so beautifully or mind, relax, don't be in a hurry, things take their time, even if a gardener pours 100 pots of water every day, the tree will bear fruit. only during the fruiting season it is so beautifully explained and my advice to the young people here is not to let money choose your career icicle I know that the moment they distribute your salary dida malaga first question, will I have the opportunity to learn their beliefs?

I have a student here in my junior colleague who actually came and didn't even ask me for money. I Adam is easier in the audience. The thing is, in those days we never used to ask how much we will get today. Money is a guiding force behind career choices. You will never find your disgusting boy, I can guarantee you that I will tell you a beautiful story about Osho. Osho is resinous, he talks about an old man, he is a 70-year-old man, a very rich man who started working 50 years ago, that is, when he was 20, so he wanted to retire, although he said let me know how much I have earned so he put money into work and the moon said give me three months like anyone else so he said okay take your time so after three months Menindee came. and he said boss, it's very difficult to know in terms of how much you have and what assets you have.

I can tell you so much that you have made enough money for four generations to live happily. He said oh God, what about the fifth and started working? Again, there's no limit, there's no end to this, you know, wanting money, so don't let it be a starting point. That's okay too, so my point is to find Eureka. I found her when she was fifty years old to find her as soon as possible because you should not

wait

for the elephant, you may not survive. I did it, but I risked a boss, so that happy note, goodbye.