Happiness 1st Institute Programs

It i time to be the change you want to see in the world.

Do you feel awe at Nelson Mandela’s ability to forgive? Does it make you feel as if he was more than you could ever be?

Do you realize that what he did was make a conscious, deliberate choice about who he would be? We all have that ability. When we see someone like Mandela as better than us, as different from us, it is choosing to believe that we are not able to make a choice like that. It gives us an excuse to keep bitterness, blame, and hate in our hearts. But the truth is that no one is better than the potential any other holds. It is really the choices we make,

Nelson Mandela made some great choices and is revered for doing so. Rightfully so. He demonstrated to the world something about the capacity of humanity to hold peace in our hearts. However, Nelson Mandela did not do that because he was a great man. He was a great man because he did that.

He did something all are capable of doing, but few do. We can all put peace in our hearts regardless of what we have lived. I believe we can and that there are many unsung heroes who have quietly done so.

That is why I am not writing about Mandela. Yes, he did great things but if we see him as someone far better than us, we also decide that we cannot do what he did. We (and society) are better-served believing all of us possess the same capacity for love, peace, forgiveness, and resilience that he demonstrated so vividly.

Perhaps you are like me. Although I lived during Apartheid, I did not have a good understanding of what it was like to live through it. Recently, I read a book, Escaping Apartheid: Letters to My Mother, by Nomanono Isaacs, which provided the perspective I lacked. After reading this book, my understanding of Mandela’s accomplishments changed and my faith in the goodness of humanity grew. You might be wondering how a book about Apartheid could increase my faith in humanity’s resilience. I will attempt to answer that in this blog.

My heart fully believes it is a message everyone can benefit from understanding. Many people experience difficult situations during their lives. Heartbreak, betrayals, and countless types of tragedies befall humans. How bad the experiences are depends on the perspective of the person. I know someone who has been holding more bitterness in his heart because his Grandmother took his cousins to the circus without him when he was a child than Nomanono Isaacs holds in hers after living through Apartheid.

I can say this not only because of her book, but also because of her actions.

Three years ago, my youngest daughter and her best friend were heading to Manchester UK for a semester abroad. I posted a message on Facebook asking if any of my London friends were willing to provide a place for them to sleep during a long weekend so they could visit London. The hotels in London were too expensive for their college budget. Although Nomanono had never met my daughter or my heart-adopted daughter, she offered both girls room in her home.

When the girls arrived, Nomanono provided a comfortable place to sleep and fed them breakfast and dinner each day. To my delight, she also had them call me at her expense a few times while they visited. I felt very appreciative. As a Mom, knowing my friend was watching out them while they were exploring a city of 8 million was a great relief. In response to my enthusiastic gratitude, she stated simply, “I know you would do the same for my daughter.” This is completely true so her comment was not amazing to me until I read her book and realized all she had lived. Nomanono’s ability to trust that I would reciprocate took on far greater meaning to me after I understood her history.

When she let me know she had written a book about her childhood in South Africa I wanted to read it because she is my friend but I was also hesitant because I do not like to read books that make me feel bad. After I decided to read her book, I was so pleasantly surprised to find it did not push me into low emotional states. Yes, awful things happened to her and her family and many others. However, she portrays them through the lens of her loving heart so although we understand what she was living more fully by reading the book, it does not lower our emotional stance. In fact, knowing her loving heart, when I finished the book I felt wonderful because I saw more clearly how, like Mandela, she is a testament to the capacity of the human heart to love and be renewed.

Mandela helped millions of people so when we see his capacity to forgive the tendency is to believe that what he is capable of is beyond us. That he is somehow “Super-human” and mere mortals like us cannot attain that sort of forgiving and loving heart. We tend to think that he is somehow better at forgiving and being peaceful than we can be. Nomanono’s book and her heart demonstrate that normal people have this capacity.

Someone who has been mistreated often loses the ability to trust. This is why I am so excited about this book and believe it is such an important work. It is the true story of her experiences from the perspective of an 11 – 21 year old and shows that living through something awful does not have to mean becoming embittered.

During my lifetime, three highly-public figures who have shown peaceful actions can move causes forward in ways that violence and war never will. But, well-recognized public figures are not the only ones capable of living through horrendous experiences and coming out on the other side with peace in their hearts, trust in their actions, and without bitterness in their hearts.

Who we become does not depend on what we live through but upon our response to it. Although many do not make a conscious choice, the ability to do so is always available to us. Can you believe you have the capacity to put bitterness, resentment, hate, and other negative emotions aside and replace them with peace? If you can’t, perhaps you could after reading Nomanono’s book.

What choices have you made? What choices do you want to make? It begins with a choice. Are you ready?