Learning to Go Well
I’m feeling guilty because I just got an email from Saint Nicholas asking if I want to keep studying an obscure Bantu language. As one does.
Let me back up a little.
You may have heard that I spend a month every year running seminars at Londolozi, a beautiful, magical game preserve in South Africa. Well, last year I was driven to and from the main camp by a in incredibly kind and generous man named Nicholas Malungana.
I call him Saint Nicholas because he was unfailingly cheerful and helpful toward me, despite the fact that he didn’t speak much English, driving me kept him away from his family in the evening, and he’d lost his oldest son to kidney disease the week before I met him.
Try sitting in an open Land Rover waiting for elephants to move out of the dirt road, next to a man who’s put aside all his feelings to care for you, and not saying a word. “Awkward” doesn’t begin.
To maintain my platinum people-pleasing card, I had to keep this man from having to make small talk in his second or third language just to keep me comfortable. So one night as the pachyderms passed, I asked, “What’s the Shangaan word for elephant?”
“Ndlopfu,” said Saint Nicholas.
I stared at him. I’d never made a sound remotely like that in my life, not even the time I ate six brownies without realizing they had pot in them and didn’t see a straight line anywhere for twelve hours.
“New…poo?” I said.
“NnnndlOpfu,” he repeated patiently.
So began my Shangaan lessons. I worked at Shangaan like a lumberjack, in the sense that lumberjacks are very industrious and no freaking good at learning Shangaan. I wrote down new words and memorized them furiously while our guests had life-changing wild animal encounters.
“Oh, my God, did you see the baby zebra rescue that mongoose from the lions?” a client would say. “I’ve never seen anything so moving!”
“Ni etlele kahle,” I’d say. “Namuntla isiku ro saseka.” “I slept well. It is a beautiful day.” And the client would wander away confused, and I would hate myself for being so crappy at Shangaan that I couldn’t learn it faster and show up like Eckhart Tolle, totally present in the Now, for my guests.
So I promised Santa I’d study Shangaan via computer after I went back to America, and he sent me some lessons with the aid of the village schoolteacher, and I DID NOT STUDY THEM AT ALL.
Just like I don’t do JUST A LITTLE yoga every day, or answer email for FIFTEEN LOUSY MINUTES every day, or change out of my pajamas before noon ONE DAY A WEEK. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?
Everything, says my meat-self. I suck and I deserve to die.
Then my meta-self chimes in, reasoning, “When you set goals just to make others happy, you leave your right life, which is the only place you’ll find sustainable energy and motivation. A person who’s really following their destiny is like a beagle following the scent of gravy, which is the most powerful force in nature, just ahead of a black hole swallowing a galaxy.”
I only half-believe this. I still think I suck. But I also believe that my real goal shouldn’t be learning Shangaan, but letting Saint Nicholas know how much I appreciate his grace and kindness. Think about it: a baby who says, “Me wuv oo,” makes everyone feel good, while a baby who says, “I slept well, Mother. It is a beautiful day,” is a frightening future serial killer. Love trumps skill.
So I’m going to write an appreciative apology to beloved Saint Nicholas, and deal with my ensuing guilt and shame as they come. Thank you, my wonderful Shangaan Santa. Thanks to all who strive excessively to make other people happy. Let us both stop pleasing each other, and start following the scent of gravy. Fambakahle, my friend. Go well.
