In Sunday’s Stillness, I Found my Ikigai - Sunbeam School Ballia

Today, I had the wonderful opportunity to attend an online session hosted by My Good School, and it turned out to be such an enriching experience. The session focused on understanding Ikigai — the beautiful Japanese concept of finding one’s true purpose in life. Although I joined a little late because I was caught up with some household chores, the moment Shahar Ma’am messaged us, I rushed to log in without a second thought. I’m so grateful I did!

The host introduced a unique method of finding our Ikigai by drawing a tree and analyzing our strengths, opportunities, and ways to contribute to society. It really made me reflect deeply. We also learned about Emotional Quotient (EQ) and how it is different from Intelligence Quotient (IQ). I even got a chance to answer a question about EQ, which made me feel really connected and engaged.

What truly inspired me the most was Mr. Sandeep Dutt Sir’s personality — his passion, wisdom, and simplicity left a lasting impression on me. It wasn’t just a session; it felt like a journey into self-discovery. I came out of it feeling motivated, thoughtful, and genuinely excited to explore my own Ikigai.

Shaurya Pandey

Sunbeam School Ballia

 

It was a fabulous experience—one of the best sessions I’ve ever attended. It wasn’t just a session, but an impactful imprint on me. The valuable insights, skills, and knowledge shared truly enhanced our understanding and opened new avenues for personal development.

Today, I found a new best friend—Ikigai. It brings together our interests, skills, strengths, and joy. It also helped me gain clarity about my values, and better understand both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The best part was planting our very own Ikigai tree, which will guide us in building confidence in our interests, skills, and overall growth.

We explored what we love, what we are good at, what the world needs, and what we can be paid for. It was such a meaningful and supercalifragilisticexpialidocious session—something that doesn’t just belong in books, but in our lives.

Ashish Verma

Sunbeam School Ballia

Compassion - Arav Agarwal

Is Your Child Ready to Face the World?

After reading the chapter compassion in the book called Is Your Child Ready to Face the World? by Doctor Anupam Sibal, my reflection on compassion.

Compassion means understanding others' suffering and helping them just like Princess Diana and Mother Teresa did.

I learned the word compassion in the lockdown when I was reading a book called Planting Seeds by Thich Nhat Hanh. There is a chapter in the book called understanding and compassion. The chapter starts with a promise "I vow to develop compassion to protect the lives of people, animals, plants and minerals. The chapter says people like doing different things; suppose you want to read a book and your friend wants to play tennis, you can just read the book later and go out to play tennis with your friend. This small act of understanding and compassion will give your friend joy and make him happy, and you will become satisfied.

After reading that chapter, I realized that everyone was practising compassion and helping each other in the lockdown. We used to practice compassion by helping in household and office work and supporting each other as everything was closed. I also showed compassion and helped my parents in work by cleaning the house and helping in cooking. My parents understood that I couldn't meet my friends, so they played games like cricket, badminton and chess, which I play with my friends. Also, the vendors were very understanding and compassionate, and they used to deliver things quickly and also arranged if they didn't have that thing. Teachers practised compassion by rapidly adapting to online learning and making it fun for us, and being patient in teaching us.

We don't need to do something big to show compassion. Small acts of kindness will show compassion and make a big difference. Everyone can be compassionate; we don't need a superpower to be compassionate. If we do a small act of compassion, we can make a big difference in the person's life which we don't realize. As rightly said by the fourteenth Dalai Lama, "If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion."

Name: Arav Agarwal

Grade: 5C

Billabong High International School, Thane

Caring - Arav Agarwal

Caring and planting more trees will make our Earth bountiful.

Oh! Nature is so wonderful.

The trees are so beautiful.

To make our Earth bountiful.

If we plant more trees 

We will get fresh oxygen and a cool breeze

So let us keep our environment clean and green

By caring and planting more and more trees

And make our planet beautiful and serene

Name - Arav Agarwal

Grade: 5C

Billabong High International School, Thane

 

Importance of Trees - Gourvi Rathore

Let us hear from Gourvi Rathore of Class UKG about the importance of trees. She is very aware of our environment, as she is asking to grow many plants, save trees and water. 

Trees are an important part of our world.  They provide wood for making paper.  They provide homes for all of the insects, birds, and other animals. Many types of fruits and nuts come from trees. Trees also help to keep our air clean and our ecosystems healthy. They provide us with oxygen.

We already have done enough destruction to the environment so let us all do our bit to save our environment by planting more and more trees.

Illustration from the cover of The Little Book Of Values, the book we love dearly at The Fabindia School.