It’s a running joke that my partner the ‘scientist’ cites Facebook as the authority on all things. “Of course it’s true – I saw it on Facebook.”
Anyway, this time he told me about something he’d seen on there that I don’t really care if it’s true or not, mainly because it’s so lovely and I would encourage everyone to adopt some of this attitude.
Here’s the story he read to me:
An anthropologist in Africa decided to play a game with the children. He put a basket of sweets under a tree and told the children that the first to reach it would win and get all the sweets. The children lined up, ready to race. When the anthropologist said “go” the children grabbed each others hands hands and ran. They arrived at the tree at the same time and happily shared the sweets.
When asked why they did that, they replied “how could one of us be happy if the rest of us are sad”.
Which brings me to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu is a philosophy that says the group and connection and caring for others and belonging and being generous is more important than the success of the individual. It also holds that we have a common bond and it is through this bond that we learn about our own human qualities. So we can’t know ourselves and be ourselves without our interaction, caring and connection with others.
I have been inspired to follow the Ubuntu path. I’m going to try to adopt this attitude over the next month consciously (until it becomes habit) and keep working on it until it’s a natural part of my life. I wonder how you might integrate too (if it inspires you).
