Vijay Menon - Life is all about understanding the significance of insignificant things

Since the induction week at Rajagiri (The B-School I am currently in), there have been sessions and session on how important it is to aim for the stars, to have a mission and vision in life, how big things matter... And in almost every session they would ask “what is your goal in life?” “Why have you joined Rajagiri?”
I seriously have a problem in answering these questions because I don’t know how to go about it. All I know is I want to be a nice person, and I believe the rest will follow. But doesn’t it really sound stupid to be so philosophical in a situation like I mentioned earlier?
When the college announced yet another personality development class by Mr. Vijay Menon (Renowned international trainer) I was so taken aback... more public speaking exercises, more thought provoking questions on ambition and where I see myself 10 years down the lane.. Worse the class was scheduled for a Sunday (9am to 5pm) and Monday!
Now that the Sunday and Monday has passed by as an ever lingering pleasant memory of self realisation, I’d say it was the best of best classes I’ve attended. I have no words to describe how that 16 hours passed by... it was a total mystery... Mr Vijay Menon just came into the KRL auditorium and started spelling out examples that sounded like real time life examples of how humility, humbleness, respect for elders (esp parents and grandparents) have led downtrodden, penny less, ambitionless starving human beings to great heights! He mentioned how important it is to aim for the stars but how much more important it is to understand reality and start working from the roots...how important it is to have values in life that makes you credible and accountable...how we should all understand that life is about making the insignificant significant..
It is true that he was just reminding us about the different realities in life which we all knew but what were effective were the examples he quoted to make his point clear.
In the session after the lunch break on the 1st day, he asked us to volunteer and say what we learnt from the morning session and unlike normal I started reciting all the different things I wanted to go on stage and tell the audience...where was my fear for public speaking? To my surprise 90% of the class had the same feeling... further there were two boys who called their fathers after few years for the 1st time, during the lunch break! No one told them to do so but the power of speech that Mr. Vijay Menon had been so evident. With just a 3 hrs session he was able to evoke the underlying emotions in all those hardened minds... There were no inhibitions, no formalities but just openness and unity among friends. All those who’ve never even attempted to go on stage and say a word went on stage said stories about their lives. We all got a chance to know our classmates and share our points of view without hesitation!
In a nutshell he told us how it is very important to get out of the illusion that luxuries in life gave us and how important it is to go out into the world and spend time with the underprivileged to understand the realities in life. The closer you are to reality the closer are you to success...”Chase purpose and not Success” is what he said!