Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The minister spread out his hands as though to show me the openness of his people,
sharing about his country, “You can go to any house, anywhere; they will always welcome
you. No matter how poor, they will take out their best for you. They will make you feel at
home. They will offer you a bed; they will offer you food; they will offer you a drink. This
is the true essence of Gross National Happiness.”
I understood the concept. I had been experiencing it for months. Kindness and joy
danced every day across the world, and as I had seen in Delhi, in Varanasi, in New York,
it was often those who offered the most kindness who also seemed to experience the most
happiness, despite the poverty or tragedy or desperation they might otherwise face.
The minister agreed. Touching his heart, he said, “Because it's coming from here. This
is the value system. If we lose it, it's gone forever. No amount of money in the world can
bring it back.”
I had seen that, too—most particularly in myself. And maybe that is why even in the
moments when I was most embarrassed to be traveling through such impoverished com-
munities with no money in my pocket, I knew that I couldn't have done this trip any other
way. As much as everyone in the world should have clean water to drink, and safe and
stable roofs over their heads, and an education for their children, below that, deep in the
cement of our foundation as human beings, is a happiness that cannot be bought.
As the minister clarified, Bhutan didn't celebrate Gross
Individual
Happiness; they cel-
ebrated Gross
National
Happiness.
He sat back in his chair and nodded in my direction as he explained, “But know it is not
just here in Bhutan that kindness occurs. People are changing everywhere; society is chan-
ging, and so the focus changes.”
“You're a very wise man,” I replied, having seen those same changes in myself—not
just in who I was, but also in how I viewed the world.
“No,” the minister laughed. “I just pay attention.”
But maybe wisdom really is just paying attention.
The small moments, the small acts, the small changes. We always think that change
needs to come in broad strokes. That in order to follow your dreams, you need to get on
a yellow motorbike to cross the world on kindness, but maybe the real epiphany is to pay
attention to all the dreams unfolding around us. If I could make one promise to myself, I
decided it would be this: when I got home, I would leave the bloody phone alone. I would
pay attention. I would let my heart break open a little more. I would allow myself to be
happy.
