Four lives in one: A journey toward the soul

2026-03-16 - 23:34

ONE does what one can, until one’s destiny is revealed, said Tom Cruise in “The Last Samurai” to his Japanese overlord when they were discussing the concept of destinies. For much of my life, I believed that a person is born with a fixed destiny — a predetermined path laid out like a map, waiting to be followed. But as the years unfolded, and as I looked back across the remarkable, turbulent, and deeply human terrain of my own existence, I came to understand something far more nuanced: that destiny is not a destination. It is a gradual revelation. And in my case, it has revealed itself across four distinct lives, all lived within one lifetime. The first life: Confusion and searching: My first life occupied roughly the first two decades of my existence. If I were to give it a name, I would call it the Season of Confusion. It was a time of deep, unspoken depression — though I would not have used that word then. I was restless, dissatisfied, unable to accept the well-worn template that billions of human beings before me had followed without question. I could not find the purpose of my being. The standard answers that society offered felt hollow. I lost myself in the distractions of youth, going through the motions without understanding why. It was, in hindsight, the necessary darkness before a long dawn. The second life: Learning and responsibility: My second life began when I left for Boston and entered college. This was my Season of Learning — a decade of voracious, almost desperate intellectual hunger. I enrolled as a mechanical engineer, but two years in, I realized that engineering alone could not answer the questions burning inside me. So I expanded. I accumulated the equivalent of a Bachelors Degree in studies in economics, philosophy, psychology, and political science — subjects that might seem unrelated but were, for me, deeply connected. Engineering was for financial survival. Economics helped me understand the mechanisms of the world. And philosophy, psychology, and political science were my attempts to understand myself, and the human beings around me. I also studied comparative religion, searching across belief systems for some thread of meaning that tied us all together. But life, as it often does, intervened. While still in college, I fell in love, got married, and became a father. Almost overnight, the Season of Learning merged into a Season of Responsibility. I worked two jobs. I set aside my own questions, my own discomforts, my own unfinished inner work. I simply provided. For another two decades, I kept my head down and my shoulders broad. I forgot about myself. And while there is dignity in that sacrifice, there is also a quiet loss that comes from setting your own soul on a shelf for too long. The third life: Development work and serving: By the time I arrived in Bangladesh to lead a USAID funded private sector development to make Bangladesh economically stronger, I had already held several careers — entrepreneur, farmer, financial sector professional, political campaign manager. I had started and walked away from more ventures than I could easily count, always moving, always restarting in a new country or a new context. My family often marveled — and perhaps quietly worried — that I would rise quickly in any field and then, for reasons of circumstance or geography, simply leave and begin again elsewhere. But when I was asked to lead what became known as the Jobs Project — an initiative to develop sixteen business sectors in Bangladesh, from information technology to handmade rugs, from leather goods to home textiles — something clicked. I understood, suddenly, that every career, every restart, every seemingly disconnected chapter had been preparing me for exactly this. This was my Season of Serving. It was fulfilling in ways nothing before had been. It connected me to a family legacy of nation-building, of service, of doing remarkable things quietly and with purpose. My forefathers had been founders, advisers to heads of state, mentors to prime ministers and presidents. And here, at last, I felt I was walking in that same dignified tradition. The fourth life: The soul: And yet, even that season carried its own pain. No matter how many people you help, there are always millions more who need help. You chase your tail. You measure yourself against the unfinished, the unaccomplished, the unhelped. I came to see that the relentless pursuit of doing good, without boundaries or targets, is as untenable as the relentless pursuit of wealth. Both leave you empty. I watched my forefathers — great, accomplished, generous people — die with a sense of incompleteness, because they had never defined how much good was enough. COVID gave me the gift of stillness. Stranded for a year and a half during what was meant to be a five-day visit, I had, perhaps for the first time since my youth, nothing to do but think. And in that thinking, I arrived at what I now believe is the true purpose of life. Not accumulation. Not even service. But the perfection of the soul. I say this humbly. I make no claim to spiritual superiority. But I believe we each arrive in this world carrying a God-soul, and our deepest obligation is to understand it, refine it, and bring it as close to its highest form as we possibly can. When you orient your life around that North Star, everything else — the helping, the building, the giving — flows naturally, without ego, without the need for recognition or reward. You do it because it is simply what a God-soul does – nurture, love, and sustain! I am now in my fourth life. And for the first time, I am not searching. I am arriving. —The writer is a former Senior Advisor to the Government and a sector development specialist.