How to Be a Better Human - How Sikh wisdom can transform your life (w/ Simran Jeet Singh)

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

No matter how religious you may or may not be, or how much you do or do not know about the Sikh religion, there’s something we can all learn from their major philosophies. Simran Jeet Singh is the author of the book The Light We Give: How Sikh Wisdom Can Transform Your Life. He joins Chris this week to talk about how to approach life with more optimism and shares how he’s navigated prejudice with humor and compassion. Hear about why he believes we all win when we show more curiosity and understanding for one another, even if we don’t subscribe to any particular set of beliefs.For the full text transcript, visit go.ted.com/BHTranscripts    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, listeners, it is Chris Duffy here. And in the spirit of the new year and new beginnings, we are offering a free trial to our TED Audio Collective subscription for the entire month of January on Apple Podcasts. That means that you'll get access to special bonus content where you'll hear our guests share their tricks to how they become a better human themselves. You'll hear them talk about the things that they're currently struggling with and working on to be better humans and so much more bonus content. And you can hear all of that and more by signing up at the top of your Apple podcast feed. Sign up for the TED Audio Collective.

That subscription, once again, is free for the entire month of January on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening, and we hope you enjoy. You're listening to How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. Sometimes when I'm trying to be a better human, I feel like my job is to re-evaluate my actions or to think about things that I'm already thinking about in a new way. What if I prioritized my work tasks differently? Or if I thought about my self-worth

from a different angle? Maybe this one new life hack for loading the dishwasher is going to be what pushes me over the edge into transcendent bliss. Other times, I think you might argue more self-aware times, I realize how vast the universe of ideas that I've never even considered at all is. There is so much wisdom and perspective that I've never exposed myself to. And that is a big reason why I am so excited that we have today's guest on the show. Simran Jeet Singh is a professor of history at Union Theological Seminary, and he's the bestselling author of The Light We Give, How Sick Wisdom Can Transform Your Life. Simran is also the host of the podcast Wisdom and Practice, and he writes and speaks a lot about the Sikh religion, which I have to be honest,

I was not very familiar with before I read his book. That's actually kind of surprising to me in retrospect, because it's one of the largest religions in the world with somewhere between 25 and 30 million believers, depending on how you count. And for perspective, that means that about twice as many people or almost twice as many people identify as Sikh as identify as Jewish. I'm not going to try and sum up all of the Sikh beliefs for you, partly because who am I to do that? And partly because I think Simran does such a great job of it in this interview and in his book. But I will just say that it is a monotheistic religion that originated in Punjab

in India, and that believers are often most visibly identified by their turbans. But that visibility also means that they frequently attract prejudice, harassment, and even violence. And there's a lot of ignorance about what it means to be sick, what it means to wear a turban, and what they believe. Here's a clip from Simran's podcast where he's talking about the ways that he personally has dealt with the confusion, the bias, and even the hatred that gets directed towards his community. Growing up in the 80s and 90s in South Texas, I was an easy target with my turban and beard and brown skin. And yet the U.S. was the only home my brothers and I ever really knew. And so I held on to this hope

that one day I'd no longer feel the weight of being both hyper-visible and invisible. But in 2012, after a white supremacist walked into a gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin and opened fire on the worshiping Sikh congregation, I felt that hope begin to splinter. And in the wake of the massacre, it was so painful watching reporters stumble through their descriptions of who Sikhs were and what was happening. In this fog of misinformation, much of the media missed a powerful message from Sikh communities. Nirpo nirver. No fear, no hate. Instead of calling for blood or retribution in the aftermath of this violence, Sikh communities in Wisconsin offered up deeply provocative questions that guide me to

this day. Where is the room for love in times of suffering? What would it mean for us to see the light, the shared divinity, vaiguru, that connects us all? How might we learn not to be so quick to draw that line of no return? Those are some very big and very important questions, and we're going to do our best to think about them together with Simran in just a moment after this break. Today, we're talking with Simran Jeet Singh about his work as a professor of history, his research on religion, and the lessons that he shares from the Sikh faith. Hi, I'm Simran Jeet Singh. I'm a writer and a professor, and I lessons that he shares from the Sikh faith. I am Simranjeet Singh. I'm a writer and a professor, and I wrote a book called The Light We Get, How Sikh Wisdom

Can Transform Your Life. I loved your book. I thought it was really well-written and interesting and so helpful and useful. So let me just start with this, which is why should everyone learn the wisdom of sick wisdom? And what is it that it can do that people can put into their lives? It's a funny question. I mean, it's a funny question I have to answer in part because I don't see myself as somebody who's a missionizer or proselytized. And I don't, I didn't know, I'm a professor of religion and I practice religion. I don't really care if people follow my religion or another one or anyone, right? It's like,

that's not the point. But I think what really kind of started to stand out to me when I was writing this book, and actually really like part of the impetus for this book was seeing how much people were struggling with how hard life can be and recognizing that because of this tradition that I grew up in, I had access to some answers that it seemed like other people didn't. We live in a culture where we don't always have ways of thinking about or even talking about some of life's toughest questions. And some of these questions are like everyday problems, like how do we live with people who are different from us? Or how do we deal with people's assumptions about us? Or even like, how do we think about our own self worths, as we were looking at, you know, a global pandemic and looking at political polarization and everyone was so angry and frustrated and hurt. And I was too. But it seemed like there were some teachings that really helped me through those moments. And I really felt a desire to help other people find some solace during some times of real darkness. how for all the really good reasons why people have moved away from organized religion, for all the abuses and prejudice and all of that, I get why people have pushed away. But it does seem like

there hasn't really been something that has filled the void of making meaning of hard things and purpose in life and finding community and traditions and things to fall back on. And not that those can't happen outside of religion, but I just feel like, at least in my world, the people who I interact with, if they don't have a religious tradition, I think it's often hard to find what is the secular version of those. I think that's right. Even for those of us who think about religion and try to practice it, even there, it can feel really meaningless sometimes, right? Like, you can fall into a certain kind of rhythm where you're just kind of doing the thing and fall in love with the idea of religion and religious practice without really thinking about how to apply the teachings

in your life. That's, in some ways, like, I'm really turned off by that approach, because we see how hurtful it can be. If we think about, you know, fundamentalist readings of religion, you know, that's some of the ugliest forms of humanity. So on the one hand, I get why people turn away from religion. I also don't push anyone towards religion itself. away from religion. I also don't push anyone towards religion itself. But what I found is there's versions of this in every kind of ideology. There are ways that you can learn to engage with these teachings that can really enrich your life and can help you navigate the complexity. And I think that to me is like, what's so powerful, like in our country now, we so often are taught to look at things through a lens of black and white, right?

And that's like, is it good or bad? Do we like it or do we not like it? Is it Democrat or Republican? I mean, over and over again, it's these dichotomies. And to me, what religion unlocks is, how do you live in the gray, recognizing that life is gray? And it's not always easy to know what the answers are. life is gray and it's not always easy to know what the answers are. And sometimes, you know,

you take these principles of, you know, compassion or service and you apply those and that helps you figure out, well, okay, this is how I want to deal with this situation where there is no easy answer. I want to read something from your book, From the Light We Give. There's this moment where you are talking about how growing up, your family in South Texas, in San Antonio, was one of the only Sikh families in the area, and that your mom would come to your school to give presentations on Punjabi and Sikh culture. And so I'm just going to read this here. She would lead us in singing while playing the harmonium and tabla, share samples of home-cooked Punjabi food, and even show how we wrap our hair in our turbans. As we got older, we began leading these sessions with her and eventually on our own. I felt a tinge of ambivalence with each presentation, and I feel the same even now as I deliver

them for my own kids. When families like mine come in to offer cultural awareness programs, it's a reminder that children would not learn about people like us unless we made the effort to open ourselves up. Presentations like these are a reflection of how much immigrants do to assuage xenophobia. My parents came to seek refuge in the U.S. and in a bid to ensure their children's safety, they go out of their way to share their culture as if to say, please don't fear or harm us. We're really very nice. That I thought was a really powerful passage. And the reason I read it is the idea that you feel ambivalence when you think about your parents

having to do that, and yet that you still do that for your own kids. And then to ask you about when you do work, like writing a book that is about sick wisdom and sick culture. And when even on a show like this, in this very episode, right, I'm just curious to hear like what that ambivalence is for you and why you still think it's important, how you feel about it, because I think that's a complicated thing. I haven't thought about that passage in some time. And actually, this morning, literally, my wife and I were coordinating with our daughter's teachers to set up these presentations. So it's so interesting to hear that today as a parent now, I understand like all of these are just excuses to go hang out with your kids and their school and just snoop on the teachers and see if you like them and which kids sit with you and all that stuff. I realize now that's really the undercurrent. But that feeling of

ambivalence is still there. And the awareness that if we didn't do it, no one would is also still there. And so what do you do in a culture where you recognize that no one knows who you are and no one will know? And that ignorance can lead to all kinds of violence. I mean, literal physical violence that I've experienced and people in my family have felt. And knowing that we would be safer if people knew who we were. And on the other hand, recognizing that it's not really fair that our world is structured and our country is structured in such a way that certain people have to explain themselves in order to find safety. And, you know, I think for a lot of people, that unfairness of it outweighs the need for safety. And I'm hearing more and more people being like, I don't have to justify my existence. And why

should I just deal with it and learn to see my humanity and get over your own xenophobia or your bias or whatever it is and I get that and it feels like it's born out of a frustration that's very familiar to me I have found it it's it's almost a way of asserting my own agency right like I live in this country where so often I'm put in a position where I have to react to people's racism and to have the opportunity to say, actually, I'm going to be proactive about it. Like I'm not going to fall into the reactionary mode, which depends on your moods or whatever happens to me on the street.

It's more like, you know, I'm going know, I'm going to have some control over it. And I realized that the control is very minimal and, you know, is talking to my daughter's third grade class about a Punjabi festival going to resolve bias and racism in this country. Like, of course not. But it does make me feel like I'm making a difference within a community that I care about and also creating safety for my kids in a context where, you know, being different in this country can be really hard. And I grew up with that, too. And so those are the kinds of things that I'm grappling with.

I think reading your book, one thing that I was struck by is I didn't think that I knew a lot about what it meant to be a Sikh, but I thought I knew a little. And then I realized because you write it in your book that I was quite literally even saying the word wrong. Right. Like I was like, oh, Sikh and Sikhism. And you talk about how both of those are kind of not actually the correct way and come from a colonial understanding of the language. So I think there's this basic part where it was a little bit humbling for me, but I wanted to be humbled in that way. And I'm all this is to lead to nor who is one of the producers on this show said in the prep for this episode, she said that, you know, I'm sick and I actually really never meet anyone who knows anything about the religion. And this is her words. I'm genuinely curious why no one has ever Googled it.

Right. Because like they we literally could just Google these answers. And yet here you are having to like do interviews and write a book for people to find this information out. I've heard over and over from people in the Sikh community who were like, what the hell, right? Like we're the world's fifth largest religion. You know, there are millions of us all around the world. We've had

prominent global positions in government and sports and business and so on. And we're so visible. In our community, many of the people wear turbans and have beards. And so what is all of this about? And I have a hypothesis here. We are not a tradition that goes out and tries to convert people or even to advertise ourselves and say, here's who we are. And part of that comes from this core belief, which I find really compelling and beautiful, which is, you don't have to be of a certain tribe or a certain worldview or believe in a certain thing in order to achieve the goal of life. And that's a very different approach to religion than we get from a lot of traditions, right? Like, essentially, the teaching in Sikhism is the goal in life is to achieve love,

to live a life of love. And you can do that from wherever you are. And you don't have to follow our philosophy in order to live a life of love. And we celebrate people as enlightened beings who come from different traditions, even within our own scripture. And I think what that opens up for me is in this sort of Western colonial understanding of religion, which is like, it's a competition, like mine has to be better than yours for mine to be legit. Like it's kind of how we think about everything, right? Politics, sports, like my wife is a big Dose fan. We were on Monday Night Football the other night and like these, all these fans were getting in fights with each other, not because they hated the other team, but because they love their own team and the nature of their love require them to be better

than others. It's just like, do we need to find our own self-worth on the basis of denigrating other people? We see that in politics and it's so gross. And so part of what we see in the Sikh tradition that I find beautiful and other traditions have versions of this too, is this openness to love as the thing that binds us together as people also then means that, you know, we don't have this political history of colonizing or converting, and then nobody ends up knowing about us because we're not out there telling them our story. And just the last piece of it is, to me, as part of this hypothesis is, you know, what we believe is like, you live a life of service and the world is bigger than you. So anyway, this is all sort of my working theory for why people don't know about who

six are. And I think there's something really that I'm really attracted to by that worldview. And also, the flip side of that coin is like, there's real danger that comes with not being known, especially in a country and in a world where being unknown or being rendered invisible can be really dangerous. So I imagine many people who are listening to this, whether they are themselves sick or are from another community where maybe they are visibly not part of the majority wherever they live, are managing something similar. So I'm curious what advice you have for people who are managing that and how you did it when you were younger and how you've managed that now as an adult, whether it's changed, or you've learned anything about how to manage those that work? Yeah, honest answer from me is that there is no right answer. Then, you

know, if somebody comes in, being genuinely curious, like as you were describing, or if somebody comes in, hateful and angry, like, that alone determines a very different kind of response. But then there's also other questions, as everyone listening will know, like it depends on context, right? Like, are you in a place where it's safe? Are you? Do you have time? Like, if I'm out with my family, I might react very differently than if I'm on my own, when if I'm out for a run, and I don't want to stop my run, like all these factors are there. And I think, you know, what I've learned is appreciate the context and also give yourself grace. Last night, my neighbor was talking about how her other neighbor was accusing her of not liking her because she's Turkish. And my neighbor was so offended. And she was pretty upset. And we were talking about it. And I was like, you know, she's like, how do you deal with this stuff when

people make assumptions about you? And I was like, you know, the best thing that I've learned is like, to remember that oftentimes, their assumptions have less to do with you and more to do with them. It's so easy to take these kinds of criticisms or assumptions personally, because they do affect us, right? Like, I'm talking about two neighbors who have to live next to each other, like, how does it not feel personal? But try and take your ego out of it and say like, okay, this isn't actually about me. It's about this other person. And if the conditions are right, and I'm feeling up for it, then I'll be like, okay, let me help this other person. And it brings it back to service as opposed to obligation. And those two things are very different. And right now, like in our society,

we're often thinking about microaggress know, having to explain who we are and the burden of responsibility and who that should be on. And I get all of that conversation and I'm in agreement with a lot of it in terms of where we're landing. What I would offer is if you can think in some cases about these moments as being opportunities to connect with people and to serve them, that's a very different kind of experience, one that does not feel heavy and obligatory, but one that actually feels liberating in some ways. And so that that mindset has really helped me in those kinds of moments. We'll be right back in just a moment. And we are back.

Today, we're talking with Simran Jeet Singh, author of The Light We Give, How Sick Wisdom Can Transform Your Life. You have a lot of very funny examples in the book of someone saying something ignorant to you or to someone in your family and then coming up with just a perfectly scripted one-liner and saying it back to them. What role can humor or laughter play in changing the tone and the tenor of your experience with these types of things? Humor, I mean, as, as you're describing, like it was a tool that we learned early to, to really negotiate tense situations. And a lot of the, for my brothers and me was like, here is how to deal with pain. Like sometimes with really ugly situations, like, like if somebody says something hateful to you or denies you service, like it sucks. And especially when you're a kid and like to be able to joke about it changes the tenor of that experience. And so humor was a really valuable tool. what I've realized is humor also unlocks it unlocks people's armor right it disarms them and opens them up to like I mean especially from somebody who's visibly religious like when people

see my turban and my beard they're like oh that guy's hardcore right like that guy must be serious and for me to make a joke or like a pop culture reference they're like oh he's like it's unexpected and then like whatever the punchline is they're like oh this guy's a person well one example of this that you give in the book that i laughed out loud at is when someone says to you go back to where you came from kind of like the classic racist trope and you lean really heavily into your texas accent which i i don't want to force you to do unless you want to but i thought that was so funny the way you respond when someone says, go back to where you came from. Yeah, y'all want me to go back to Texas?

It's like, yeah, that was like our that was like our accent. My brothers and me would throw around all the time. And what I think humor does sometimes in that example, too, the easy answer is like, hey, that's messed up. Why would you say that? But like, how is somebody going to respond when they say that? They're going to be like, they're going to double down and be like, yeah, but you shouldn't be here. I mean, how many times has that happened to me? I mean, dozens.

But it's a very different reaction when you can show someone how absurd their comment is. And so like the Texas accent hits hard. And I'm like, I'm from San Antonio. You want me to, why do you want me to San Antonio. And they're like, Oh, I didn't realize that's what I was saying. And of course, like for some people, that's not what they really mean. And they're gonna still go hard. But for some people, it's like a moment to like that punchline requires a moment of reflection. And that moment of reflection can reveal something about their own,

you know, internal dissonance and racism. And so, yeah, humor, humor, I found is, in a lot of cases, a much more effective tool, not just as like a survival tactic for me and self entertainment and all that stuff, but also like, an effective way of communicating back to people. There's a moment in the book where you're at a water park with your family and someone comes up to your brother and sees his turban and says, like, are you a genie? And he says, yeah, and I'm going to make your racist ass disappear. And moments like that, one, just like, great, love that. Great line.

But I just want to say, I really feel like there's a cinematic nature to your work and the way you write. And I'm like, there is definitely like a TV show or a movie or some sort of adaptation of this to be made that would be really hilarious and relatable and great. I just really believe that as someone who works in TV and has written stuff. That's like a dream of mine. And like, it's so easy to say that to anyone, right? Like you could say something with that tone of language to anyone. But like part of why that story worked is because he was on a basketball court in a park where we were playing pickup. And so like, it was effective because my brother was

speaking the language of the people in that context. It's like a mic drop moment. And all the guys are like, Oh, and they like surround my brother. And they're like, he got you. And then got you and then like it like totally broke the ice right and like it's cinematic in that it's this like triumphant moment where people come together and it doesn't always work out that way right one of the reasons why the idea of like the pop culture or entertainment representation of your work is in my head is because i was also thinking as I was reading this that there's a lot of talk in culture about like the importance of representation. And I think that many people, certainly me included, are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that.

That's important. But this is actually why representation is so important is because people have misrepresented identity and that is affecting your day-to-day life right like the idea that a turban a visible thing that you wear every day that is associated with terrorism it's not like random people just made that up like that comes from what they are consuming in media and that media is not at all accurate to like ideologies or even religions, right? Like the religious affiliation of what the turban means. So it feels like there's a lot of misguided, prejudiced media that has kind of seeped in. And that is that then leads to regular people having to do this work in their life

because it hasn't been undone in the pop culture version that many people are seeing. Totally. That's so true. And I would say the most intuitive version of dealing with that from a misrepresentation standpoint is to be like, hey, everyone, a term is not actually a signal of terrorism. That's typically what we do. And I could do that. And in some ways, I end up having to do that. A lot of times i'm like you know hey can you come do this interview on cnn and talk about you know this hate crime when somebody was attacked because somebody thought they were a terrorist and can you explain why you're not a terrorist and like i do that for the reasons we were describing before like there's safety in it there's value

to that for my community and also it's so frustrating to be stuck in that cycle where like the only thing that i can talk about the only the only time people ever want to talk to me or interested in me is like through this victim narrative right and so what is it what does it do like even if i'm saying hey i'm not a terrorist like it's still so dehumanizing to be in a world where the only times people care about me is when that happens. And so part of what I'm really interested in doing, and I appreciate your note on like the importance of representation, the depth of representation is like, how do we get out of that constant cycle and say like, oh, this is a real person who by the way like you wouldn't expect it by looking at him but he likes sports or he has a family i mean one of the funniest things that i observed when i had my my two daughters were born was like i would be pushing the stroller down the streets of new york city where like nobody makes eye contact with you right like it's new york but like it's home it's where

we've lived for a long time now and like people would like smile at me and wave at me and like i was like what is going on and i was like oh they they see me as like a human being because i have a baby like i'm a father and so like what does it take to actually undo as you're saying like how do you undo some of that like i don't think it's just by denying the misrepresentation. It's actually like bringing out the full human lives of people, especially those that we have certain stereotypes about. Let's talk about a couple of the specific Sikh beliefs and philosophies that you highlight in your work. One of them is you talk about Charthikala. Yeah, Charthikala. Yeah, it's good Punjabi.

Charthikala. Can you tell us a bit about that and how that plays out in your life and in your experience of the world? The term charthikala refers to eternal optimism, and it comes at the end of a prayer that we offer, usually collectively. And with my kids, we do this every morning before they go to school. usually collectively, and you know, with my kids, we do this every morning, before they go to school, the request is, please ensure eternal optimism, high spirits, and the upliftment of all humanity, and those two things go in hand. And I found this to be such a powerful practice, a simple story

that I can sort of share with you is after 9-11, when there was racist backlash in this country and my family was locked up at home, we didn't leave the house for a few days. And it felt really dark. And we felt really pessimistic. I mean, in the way that we did again with the pandemic and all sorts of fires that are going on in our world right now, it's so easy to feel hopeless. And my dad, as I was walking down one day, he was like, aren't we so lucky? And I'm like, what are you talking about? The world feels pretty crappy right now. He's like, but your neighbors have been coming by and delivering groceries and bringing meals for us. And your teammates and

your teachers have been checking in to see if you're okay, like, we're so lucky. What I learned then, and it's sort of tied to Jardikala, is that there always is goodness around us. Like there's always positivity around us, even when things feel hopeless, and we just have to open up our eyes to it. And if we can do that, the goodness of the people around us and the light and the world around us can really inspire us in ways that feel almost impossible, like in moments right now. So it's this sort of daily reminder of eternal optimism.

Like it's not a sugar coating or a silver lining. It's like, hey, develop this practice of seeing the good around you. That's what it's meant for me. You also talk in the book about a practice that you do of just walking the streets of New York and just looking for each small act of kindness that people do, which that really struck me because this is something I really struggle with. my social media today because what shitstorm is going to be on like i don't know but like it's also true that like we're living in an environment where we're bombarded with negativity um right with news and social media and so on and so what does it look like for us to have a practice that does the opposite and part of my thinking around this practice that you're describing is that the bombardment comes from a macro level, right? And it's almost abstract.

It's like, it's not really in our daily life, but we know about it and it's happening in the world around us. And actually, like, this is new for the human brain to be absorbing all of this overwhelming information. this overwhelming information. And so I started to just look locally and within community and seeing like, hey, what outcome would there be if I just watched people? Like, are people good or bad? I don't know. And so if you just watch them, I've had this consistent experience whenever I've done this, that like, people are really good to each other. And I mean, even in New York, where the assumption is people suck and they don't take care of each other, they really do. And that really surprised me when I started to notice, in a really good way, where I started to feel more trust and hope in the people around me. but like trust is it's this feeling you have in one another where you can have hope right because you know that people will be there for you in hard times and you know that people mean well and even if you disagree with them you they're still kind-hearted right like all these things

we don't necessarily feel right now we can sort of inculcate again with this practice it also makes me think about another big part of the Sikh religion, which is service or seva. CB I find one of the most attractive parts of Sikh philosophy, the tradition is and the learning of the tradition is that you start doing seva as a child. Even when you're at the place of worship at Gurdwara, you are passing out napkins. The way we describe it is this term, right? So like, even when you're at the place of worship at Gurdwara, like you are passing out napkins, the way we describe it is this term vanchakna, which means you give, and then you partake. And that's supposed to be something that's every aspect of your life. And

it's not that you have to abstain from partaking or deny yourself the enjoyment in life. But like, you also have to think about other people before you think about yourself. And so seva is, it's a practice that you can engage to remind yourself that the world is bigger than you and your ego is misguiding you. And so by serving others, you are reinforcing this idea and diminishing your ego, your practice. And that is ultimately what leads to a more loving way of life. Do the intentions matter, right? Is it okay if we are helping people, not because we're truly selfless, but because we're supposed to, or because it makes us feel like a good person to do? What do you think about that? Yeah, it is like a classic paradox. And I think like a classic paradox. And I think part of the basis of that paradox relies on a Western understanding of service, which is one is to reduce people's suffering because people need it.

And the other one is because I have privilege. And if I have privilege, then I have a responsibility. And I think both of those are true. At least they ring true for me. But it takes the outlook there is very much based on an understanding of service as being only for the other person, right? Like that is I'm serving you because it's going to transform you and it's going to transform society. If we're to understand service as a spiritual practice and recognizing that it can have a transformative experience or transformative impact on you as a person, right? It can change you from the inside. practice and recognizing that it can have a transformative experience or a transformative impact on you as a person, right? It can change you from the inside, which I think we already

know in our hearts, by the way, because we've all experienced it in some way, right? When we serve people, we know what it does to us in our hearts, like that feeling of, you know, giving someone to something who needs it, right? It might be a meal or it might be a jacket, right? Like, it changes us. And so if we can see service as something that is also meant to help us, as we're helping others, something that transforms us as we're transforming society, then I think absolutely the intention really matters because it's not really going to bring you satisfaction or joy internally if you're not experiencing that transformation. The idea of like service changing us as well and also being that we all need purpose in our lives. That's like a fundamental need for us is to have an effect on the world and others positively.

need for us is to have an effect on the world and others positively. Yeah. If you look at some of the research on the loneliness epidemic, mental health crisis, a lot of this is tied to a lack of purpose and a feeling that people have, what's the point of trying if I can't fix all the world's problems? And it feels so burdensome. And so part of what I'm starting to understand is if our ultimate happiness relies on a perfect world, then we might as well give up, right? Like the world is never going to be perfect. But if we understand with some humility, right? Like we can do what we can from where we are

and that in doing so we can reduce people's suffering and we can also reduce our can from where we are. And that in doing so, we can reduce people's suffering. And we can also reduce our own suffering through service. That is a beautiful outcome. And it's not perfection. But what is this expectation that perfection is even achievable? I don't know where that comes from. So I really find liberation in letting go of this idea of perfection as a goal or even a pursuit and instead saying, I'm going to use this tool as a way to bring myself happiness through internal transformation. Simran, it has been an absolute pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for being on the show and thank you for the work that you do.

Same. Thanks, Chris. This was awesome. That is it for this episode of How to Be a Better Human. Thank you so much to today's guest, Simranjeet Singh. His book is called The Light We Give, and his podcast is the Wisdom and Practice Podcast. I am your host, Chris Duffy, and you can find more from me, including my weekly newsletter and information about my live shows at chrisduffycomedy.com. How to Be a Better Human is put together by a team who would never make an offensive comment at a water park.

On the TED side, we've got Daniela Balarezo, Ben Ben Cheng, Chloe Shasha Brooks, Lainey Lott, Antonia Leigh, and Joseph DeBrine. This episode was fact-checked by Julia Dickerson and Mateus Salas. On the PRX side, we've got a group of folks who, while I acknowledge that perfection is impossible in this lifetime, they also do come pretty darn close. Morgan Flannery, Nora Gill, Maggie Gorville, Patrick

Grant, and Jocelyn Gonzalez. And of course, we wouldn't exist as a show without you, our listeners. So thank you for listening to How to Be a Better Human. You can listen on Amazon Music or just ask Alexa, play How to Be a Better Human on Amazon Music. Wherever you are listening, please share this episode with a friend or a family member who you think would enjoy it. We so, so, so appreciate that. It gets us out to new people. And we will be back next week with even more How to Be a Better Human.

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