The Secret of Happiness

My friend Linda shared this story with me.

An anthropologist showed a game to the children of an African tribe. He placed a basket of delicious fruits near a tree trunk and told them that the first child to reach the tree would get the basket.

He gave them the start signal. He was very surprised to see the children all walking together. They all held hands until they reached the tree and shared the fruit!

He couldn’t understand why they each didn’t try to get the basket for themselves.

They thought he was the foolish one! They answered with astonishment: ‘Ubuntu.’

“How can one of us be happy while the rest are miserable?”

Ubuntu in their civilization means I am because we are.

And yet in our civilized way of life, we strive to be the best, to overcome the other guy, to win at all costs. And what do we have? A society with a few ‘got-a-lots’ and lots of struggling not-enough-to-live-on.

And he replied to them, He who has two tunics undergarments, let him share with him who has none; and he who has food, let him do it the same way. (Luke 3:11, AMPC)

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