The Happiest Woman I’ve Ever Met Taught Me This…
Who’s the happiest person you’ve met?
The happiest person I’ve ever met is a seventy year-old Bolivian lady, who lives in the Amazon jungle. She’s had her life threatened by the Bolivian government and she’s survived a near-fatal caiman attack. Yet despite all setbacks, she’s dedicated her life to preserving and protecting the rainforest.
We met Rosa Maria when we were travelling in Bolivia. We arrived in the northern town of Rurrenabaque, the jump-off point to the Amazon rainforest, and a fellow traveller recommended that we head to Serere, an eco-lodge created and sustained by indigenous people in a remote part of the jungle. We spent three days at Serere and were lucky enough to have Rosa Maria, the founder of the project, as our personal guide.
As we strolled through the jungle, paddled rowboats on the lake and played with Rosa Maria’s rescued spider monkey, her life story slowly unravelled. She told us about her childhood in an Amazonian village and how this had established a reverence and respect for the jungle that would last a lifetime. She explained how she has spent much of her adult life seeking to protect the rainforest from destruction and has made many powerful enemies in the process — governments and businesses who seek to benefit from projects that destroy huge areas of land. She purchased Serere in an effort to protect at least one piece of the jungle and to educate visitors about the importance of conservation.
Our time with Rosa Maria had a lasting impact on us. In our year of travelling, she was not only the most inspiring person we met, but also seemed to us to be the happiest. Here are some of the things Rosa Maria taught us about happiness:
Just keep going
Rosa Maria has faced many setbacks on her journey. Time and again she has come up against authorities, who refuse to prioritise the environment over personal greed. She has even had her life threatened and been forced to temporarily leave the country. She has had more than her fair share of medical difficulties as well, having been attacked by a caiman while swimming in one of Serere’s lakes and lost a large part of her thigh. She was told that she may never walk again and suffered through countless operations over a period of several years.
In the face of all these obstacles, she has done one thing: kept going. She hasn’t allowed anyone or anything to sway her from her path or persuade her that it wasn’t worth it. I think this is a powerful lesson for all of us. So many of us are quick to give up when things get tough or when we don’t see results quickly enough. If we don’t lose weight on the first week of a diet or get a promotion in the first year of a new job, we are all too ready to declare that it’s too hard and we should just give up. However, most things that are worthwhile do not come easily — if they did, they wouldn’t feel worthwhile! We have to put in effort to achieve our goals and that effort has to be constant.
Be the change you want to see
What Rosa Maria has achieved is hugely impressive, but the preservation of Serere is just a drop in the ocean when you consider the rate and extent of the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. She has managed to protect just a tiny part. It would be easy to be disheartened by this but, for her, Serere stands as an example of what one person can achieve.
Many of us give up in the face of overwhelming challenges. Why bother to recycle when it would have such a negligible impact on climate change as a whole? Why bother donating to charity when your small contribution won’t cure diseases? Problems can seem so big that taking action seems pointless. However, taking these small steps gives us the satisfaction of knowing that we are living in align with our morals and, if everyone takes those small steps, they will add up to something meaningful.
Happiness is peace
If we think of happiness, we tend to think of feelings of elation, excitement, euphoria. These are the feelings that most of us are chasing when we say we want to be happy. Rosa Maria made me see that we find happiness not through brief spikes of euphoria, but through obtaining a lasting sense of peace.
I wish I could tell you how to find everlasting peace, but unfortunately I’m far from it myself! However, I think the starting point is to reassess your definition of happiness, to stop searching for the “highs” and to start find pleasure in the simpler parts of your life. I think peace also comes from acceptance — that is, not wishing things were different or waiting for things to change, but accepting and appreciating the way things are.
Peace comes from purpose
I think that one of the reasons Rosa Maria is able to live peacefully is because she lives with purpose. She is dedicating her life to something meaningful, to something that is greater than herself, and with that comes a sense of satisfaction and calm.
Purpose is a vital element of a happy life and I have written about it many times. We all need purpose in our lives and without it we feel restless and uneasy, perhaps even guilty that we are “wasting” our lives. In that way, I think purpose and peace go hand in hand — if you find something that gives you purpose, you are more likely to feel peaceful about the way you are living your life.
You can be happy without your “stuff”
Life at Serere is very simple. There is no electricity, which means no lights, no hot water and (horror of horrors) no wifi. Rosa Maria has very few belongings that the rest of us would consider essential — cars, electronics, clothes, books. Yet she claims to have everything she needs to be happy.
I’m not suggesting that we all throw away all our stuff and go and live in the jungle. In fact, I actually think that material possessions can add to our happiness — it certainly makes me happy to wear nice clothes and have beautiful things around me in my home. However, I think the lesson I learnt from Rosa Maria (and from a year of backpacking with very few belongings!) is that I could still be happy without all my “things”. Many of us allow our happiness to be too closely anchored in our belongings — we allow them to be the most important aspect of our happiness. It can be liberating to realise that our stuff is just exactly that — “stuff”, and we do not need it to be happy.
Being in nature is not being disconnected
Rosa Maria spends the majority of her time in the rainforest, only venturing to Rurrenabaque (the nearest town) a few times a month and La Paz (the nearest major city) a few times year. My first thought upon arriving at Serere was that it was “cut off” from the rest of the world, as there are none of the modern forms of connection available. I wondered how Rosa Maria and her team could live in such “isolation” all the time.
Over the course of my time there, I started to see that being in the natural environment brings a different type of connection, perhaps a more authentic one. Rosa Maria might not be constantly connected to the rest of the world, but she is much more connected to her part of the world. It is well established that spending time in nature can increase our happiness and I think the reason for this is that our natural environment provides us with something that modern society can’t — that is, a comforting reminder that we belong to something far bigger and more enduring than ourselves.
To sum up….
It’s funny how you can spend years with some people and learn nothing, yet spend three days with someone else and have your whole perspective changed.
The happiest person I’ve ever met taught me:
- To keep going, despite your setbacks
- To be the change you want to see
- That happiness is peace, not euphoria
- That everyone needs a purpose
- That you do not need as much stuff as you think you do
- That being in nature does not mean being disconnected
I’d love to hear your thoughts. Who’s the happiest person you’ve ever met? What did they teach you?
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Originally published at ontheroadtohappiness.org on March 16, 2019.
