The best career advice came from the least expected place. “What if I actually passed happy a long time ago?” This thought tormented me as we sailed up the east lagoon of Bora Bora. Past the 5 star bungalows perched expensively over the crystal blue water. Past tourists seeking a week’s reprieve from 50+ hour work weeks. Past visitors who’d saved for years to buy a week here. Were these people living the life? Probably not, based on the words echoing loudly in my head.
We sailed effortlessly up the lagoon, minds transfixed on the jaw dropping view of that iconic tree covered caldera. A rainbow stretched from the clouds right down to the shore, so close I could have sailed over and touched it.
I had just spent a magical day with Tahitian friends on one of the motus that ring the island.”
We’d arrived earlier in the day, dropping anchor and taking a small dinghy to shore. The Tahitians in our group laughed and talked as they show us how they caught fish, made plates from palm fronds, harvested coconuts and made milk, picked bananas, picked breadfruit, and started a cooking fire with nothing but sticks. What they were sharing with us wasn’t the resourceful magic of their heritage.
These were friends of my father who had spent two years here as a missionary back in the 1960s when half the island didn’t even have electricity. He had come to help and serve and learn from them. He developed a love for them and friendships that were as close today with their children as they were with their parents and grandparents over 50+ years earlier. What people were sharing was the simple joy of togetherness. The uninterrupted happiness that comes when people spend time together, laughing, singing, and connecting. I didn’t speak Tahitian, or French. But as we sat on the ground, eating fish, coconut, and bananas, Miri Hau, a smiling Tahitian woman asked if in English if I enjoyed the food. She offered an explanation, almost apologetically, “It’s simple… but enough to be happy.”
I was struck suddenly with a realization of how far past happiness we have gone. Somewhere, at some point in western cultures someone decided we needed more to be happy. More titles. More money. More things. More power. More time at work because that seemed to create more titles, more money, more things, more power. More of everything… everything except happiness. We passed happiness a long time ago. Miri Hau could see clearly what most of us had forgotten. Time with those we love, time together. It’s simple… but enough to be happy.
As we cast off from Bora Bora that afternoon and out into the deep blue rolling pacific ocean, there wasn’t a dry eye on the boat. I am left re-evaluating what I prioritize. How much simpler is happiness?
