This past weekend I went camping with a mentor of mine from high school. He is one of those people who has lived his life exactly how he wanted to live it. He’s been a lawyer as well as a teacher and mentor to high school and college aged students. He continues to travel everywhere in the world at the drop of a hat. He spends hours in nature both in solitude and in the company of others; in a two week period he has gone backpacking with two separate groups of teenagers and on a weekend camping trip with a group of prior students. He is not a man of few words and is no stranger to telling stories, so as I sat with him in front of a campfire with the stars above our heads, he began to tell me of the most impactful experience of his life. In his mid twenties he volunteered with the Peace Corps in Liberia as a teacher and coach. As his stories unfolded, three essential pieces of advice were revealed:
1. You will be happiest if you give rather than receive
Those who work to change the lives of others both physically (by giving material goods) and mentally and emotionally (by providing knowledge and support) are always happier than those who always look out for their own self interest. This advice characterized not only his time in the Peace Corps, but also his actions later in life. During his stay in Somalia he opened his home, which was one of the few with electricity, to students who needed light to study. Later, he opened his office and his time to students who he mentored and taught about the Constitution. He was fulfilled by providing what he had to others because he knew that he could influence future generations through what he already had.
2. People are an ends not a means
Rather than using others to get to a certain position in your life, you must put the person first and the desired outcome second. In other words, rather than trying to get ahead by becoming friends with a certain person, you should become friends with that person and if it results in getting ahead, great, but if not you have a new friend. This approach to relationships is essential in Somali culture. Anytime you need to ask someone for something you must first ask them a series of questions about them. His example was asking for stamps at the post office. Instead of asking “May I please purchase ten stamps?” as you would in the US, you would ask “How are you? How is your family? Is there any news? Etc.”
3. You are always wealthy when you have what you need to be wealthy
This idea could be the hardest idea for Americans raised on the idea of the American Dream to grasp. Rather than seeking happiness through material goods and money, happiness can be found by having what you personally need to be happy. This could be having only a few personal items and traveling the world or being incredibly poor but having meaningful relationships. While he was in Somalia, every morning, uniformed students would walk up to school in the heat in the early hours of the day with their books on their heads. They were eager for knowledge and found happiness in being able to gain this knowledge rather than in he little little wealth that they had.
This is knowledge that most people never learn, but he learned it at an early age because of the experiences he had in his life, and he shared it with me, so that I could reach his enlightened state through his experiences. I am now sharing it with you all, so that we can build a community based on seeking happiness, not through money, but through benefitting others and creating our own definitions for happiness.
