Heart. The secret to happy living.

Our way of life never ceases to amaze me. We operate almost systematically with directions and paths set in stone from an early age, most of which aim for one single thing. Financial success. This is our life, our key to happiness in whatever door we choose. Life is a system and we mentally cannot be sound if we don’t have the money to cater, not only for our needs, but for our wants. I too am a victim of this, as I’m sure most of you are. It’s a simple fact bound into our wealthy culture and our minds. There’s a story though that makes me think. It’s one we can pretty much all relate to because we probably all know of a similar thing. Perhaps though we’ve never stopped to think about it.

If you were to go to your local mall, shopping center or whatever it is you call it, I can guarantee there will be at least one shop where you have stopped in the past and thought “Why the hell is he here? Who would shop there?” It’s a common thing and I’d go as far as calling it a cliché. It’s not uncommon also to go back to the shops after a few weeks and see a closing down sale. Your initial questions were right. Who would shop there? Clearly no one did.

There’s a specific store I have in mind when I speak of this. The man opened his store in what I like to think of as the cursed shop. It’s the shopping block where nothing seems to work. One shop opens, and then closes down. Then another strange shop opens and then closes down, until eventually it’s been purchased by another hairdresser or a phone retailer. This man’s idea though was pretty outrageous, and to explain it all I can really do is ask you to think of the Queen’s bedroom. I’m talking about insanely ‘royal’ furniture with sculptures carved into the sides of beds, wardrobes, lamps and anything else that can be painted gold. It really was a shock to see a store with mirrors the size of houses in what I would call a casual shopping center in a normal town. Put simply, it was never going to work.

To my surprise though, he was still there a few months later. Good on him, I thought. He’d stuck in longer than most other shops I’d seen, even though his idea was even more absurd. However there was still no one in the shop. As far as I could tell, this guy had had no significant business. The questions once again flowed through my head. “What on earth was he thinking?”

Well, I now not only know what he was thinking, but I also understand his thoughts. Over the past few weeks I’ve been having this small epiphany in regards to values in life, brought on by my recent eye-opening trip to South Africa with The Simunye Project.

The slums. Known to others as ‘home’.

If I were to mention 3rd world poverty, our minds instinctively conjure up a few generals. Sad, lonely, sick and dying people in a gloomy world with efforts, but no real hope. It’s a harsh statement I know, but it’s the simple assumed truth. As a result of my experience, I figure now that there are two real differences between the 3rd World and our own. The first one is the economy. Despite the recent recession and troubles, ours in Australia and other Western cultures can only be descried as wealthy. For the South African’s though there’s really no comparison. It’s very poor, weak and is the traceable cause of most of their problems today ranging from poverty to health.

The second difference though is a lot simpler, purer and personal. It’s heart.

Through my whole 18 days in South Africa, I can honestly say that I didn’t interact with a single person without a smile on their face. Everyone we spoke to showed expressions of love and joy, and as you can see from my Simunye photos, all the children we played with were over the moon and beyond. We forever hear the tragic stories of these orphaned and ill children living in simply ruthless circumstances. It’s hard to hear, hard to think about and believe me, it’s harder to interact with let alone experience. But did they show that through their expression? No. They never did.

If you consider your life you’ll realize the incredible contrast, not only for the obvious material differences, but also for the deeper ones. We all let small things get to us, and sometimes we let these things stick in our minds. We all see and think negatively and occasionally we reflect this upon others. It’s a constant cycle, a part of our life that’s pretty much written into our cultures. We work to buy to live to love life and all it holds. That’s what we live for and if we don’t get it then we know it, we feel it and we reflect it.

So without the clear options of finance and comfort, what do many of these South Africans have to live for? Clearly their life paths are going to be a lot different to ours. I was amazed to find out though that their dreams are very similar. We played with young boys who wanted to be pilots and soccer players, and girls who wanted to be princesses. It was cute, but also saddening to know that these children were growing up in situations that didn’t really cater for such dreams. It became clear then that these children didn’t live for financial success like we do. They live for one thing. Life.

In the 3rd world a luxury can be as simple as a hug, smile, laugh or a person. They don’t focus on searching for wealth and money in life because, even though they would want financial comfort, this is only to provide for necessities. Because of this, they never seem to act for greed or significant financial gain. Instead, they do things because they either need to do it or they want to do it. They take action with heart. It seems that anything they do they love doing and, even though there may be better things they can think of, they love it for what it is be it a chore, a sport, a person or a moment.

If we were to call a friend rich then people know we are implying that their life is full of luxuries. These are things that matter in our lives. 3rd World luxuries though are the simple things in life and the joys they take out of them, and these are the riches they search for.

Think about the man with his unique shop. What was he searching for? Money of course. That’s how our lives work. But it wasn’t a priority. Instead, he made his choice to create the shop based on heart. He opened that shop because he had a passion for such furniture and a dream, not to make riches, but to share it with the world around him. Clearly though things aren’t working out for him, so you might be asking what use is heart if it sends Western people to failure? Well, it’s all about dignity and happiness. If we forever focus on making money we let the little things get in the way of our lives. In South Africa though, making lots of money isn’t their main priority so there are no obstacles on their path to happiness.

It is hard to follow this philosophy of life in our world. We’re in a culture that doesn’t cater all too well for focusing on what we love. We all have a passion and we all have a chore. All I can really say is that next time, regardless of what it is, if you act with heart then happiness will come in some form, as it does for them.

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Harmony, work, this photo says it all. Celebrating with the children of Tshepang.

This piece was written listening to ‘To Build a Home – The Cinematic Orchestra’