03/11/2024
In early 2019, I signed up for - a pledge to contribute 50% wealth in service of the common good - within my lifetime and beyond.
Nearly six years on, I am confident that it is singularly the most gratifying choice I have made in my adult life.
It has given me the opportunity to embody a line of thinking which felt instinctively and intrinsically resonant, right and true - that there is no ’other’. That we are all in this together.
The one dream that has been a perennial driver is to see a fairer, inclusive and egalitarian world and to take part meaningfully in manifesting that vision.
I have been a recipient of life’s most precious gifts: the love of parents, a good education and a career that has – so far – afforded the opportunity to follow a diverse set of passions. What one would call an all round ovarian lottery, and to that end, it behooves me to pay it forward.
In my adolescence, money was hard to come by and for a number of years, it seemed to be the one thing that stood between me and the life of my dreams.
As a ten year old, I wanted to be the richest person in the world so that I could help my father take on the mountain of debt that we were drowning in as also give it to all the people around me who appeared to be perennially short on money to simply get by in life.
Today, I know better. Neither the richest nor the most will meaning can take on our greatest challenges by themselves.
This experience also gave me the opportunity to develop a first hand and intimate understanding of what money can potentially enable and expedite and what a lack of it can constrain.
It also meant that I developed a ‘scarcity mindset’ that was a residual side effect. In some sense, I grew to develop some kind of non-specific anxiety that a day might yet come when there will be no money on the table.
The LMP pledge is the most direct way to heal my relationship with money and internalizing at a lived level that not only do I have enough but that more importantly, I am enough.
I am not only hopeful but also confident that – as also other undertakings in the same drift - is an idea whose time has come.
The awareness about things that matter is unmissable and unmistakable everywhere you see. The ‘demand’ for giving - in the economic sense of the word – made up of the desire, capacity and willingness to act has never been higher, in some ways. It is amazing how little you need to be able to give of yourself.
Elsewhere, we are living in the age of meaning – or more accurately, perhaps, in the age of search for meaning.
For the first time in recorded history, in India alone, there are an estimated 10-20 million people in the upper middle class who are having their Maslow hierarchy needs of physiology (food), safety (roof over the head) and society (love and affection) met consistently.
Empirical evidence suggests that it is at this stage that people grapple with their ‘esteem’ needs; it is when they are most likely to ask meaningful questions including the quest for ‘why’ they are doing what they are doing.
To me, there is a clear, organic and linear link between asking the question ‘why’ and arriving at a place where you feel a strong urge – in one form or the other – to be a part of something that is much larger than yourself. Some that helps forge your identity and from a narrative around your life and the time you spend on the planet.
I also fervently hope to see a day when we retire words such as ‘donation’ or ‘sponsoring’ or even ‘charity’ or ‘giving back’.
Each of these words is pregnant with baggage and heightens the sense of separation that we experience with others. Implicit to these words is the feeling that we are doing or being asked to do something that is beyond the call of duty.
All of these words, individually and collectively, restrict us from experiencing and expressing our full humanity.
If there is one thing I have learnt in my limited experience within this space, it is that giving is not about the giver at all. The thought that you must give and forget or not expect anything back is a contrivance and total misunderstanding because the act of giving is complete in itself.
The boundaries between the giver and receiver must blur and collapse for the giver and receiver are the same.
To be in a position to give something – love, care, affection, understanding, money – is a total, utter, complete and unconditional privilege.
P.S: A hundred and twenty other people have signed up for the pledge with many others waiting in the wing. If you are curious or feel called to act, you can look up www.livingmypromise.org or ping on messenger.
LivingMyPromise invites Indians to commit to giving 50% of their wealth towards any philanthropic causes they believe in either in their lifetime or will. 80+ Indians from across the globe signed up for LivingMyPromise. Consider making this promise!
