Often, to create a better life, we focus too much on ourselves but forget an essential factor, and then we wonder why things are still not the way we imagined. Here’s a story:

An anthropologist had been studying the culture of a remote African tribe, and his trip was about to end.

On the day before his return, he thought of giving back to the village he had been working in. So, he got a gift basket full of fruits and chocolates and wrapped it beautifully. He placed the basket under a tree and then he gathered up the children in the village.

The man drew a line in the dirt, and told the children, “When I tell you to start, run to the tree and whoever gets there first will win the basket.”

But when he told them to run, they all paused, held each other’s hands, and ran together to the tree. Then they sat together and enjoyed the treat as a group. Shocked, the anthropologist asked why they all ran together when one of them could have won all the things for themselves?

A young boy looked up at him and said, “How can one of us be happy if everyone else is sad?”

This mentality is a part of many African tribes and is described by the word “Ubuntu,” which means, “I am because we are.” On this, Desmond Tutu, South African activist, and Nobel Peace Prize winner, says,

Africans have a thing called ubuntu. We believe that a person is a person through other persons. That my humanity is caught up, bound up, inextricably, with yours. When I dehumanize you, I dehumanize myself. The solitary human being is a contradiction in terms. Therefore, you seek to work for the common good because your humanity comes into its own in community, in belonging.

Coming Together

This idea, which is lacking in the competitive capitalist societies of today, is essential to a good life. It is natural that if our environment comprises fulfilled and happy people, we are also bound to feel good. But when we blame it on capitalism, one need not jump to a political debate of why it is good or bad against socialism or monarchy. We need to pick the responsibility at an individual level, and that’s all.

Regardless of the place and conditions we live in, it is always possible to help another person. Help does not always mean a donation of money. Do whatever you can. Give away the things you don’t need anymore, reduce wastage of limited resources like water, use less electricity, and smile at others. What matters is that we see the human within everyone around us, regardless of their social or financial status.

If humanity were a being, each one of us is an essential cell in its body. We make its eyes, heart, limbs, and so on, but only if we co-operate. But if we don’t work together, this humanity is bound to be plagued by diseases of civil strife, poverty, hunger, and wars. Harmony is the only way. Love is the answer.

United we stand, divided we fall.

Ubuntu! 😊