Santa Teresa Village, Belize
A recent holiday in Belize gave me an opportunity to how another culture relates to work. Part of the holiday included visiting the village of our Mayan guide, Pedro. His village is nestled into an area that his people have carved out of the jungle. We met his family and another Mayan family prepared lunch for us.
In this village people live in houses made out of boards, thatched roofs and most of the dwellings had mud floors. Most families earn a living by farming. Each year on a rotating basis they cut down 3 or 4 acres of the jungle and plant their crops of rice, beans and corn. There is no doubt that these people work hard just to live.
I was reading a book on this trip called “Spiritual Warfare” by Jed McKenna. One of his points was that there is no “good” and “bad”, there just is. As a result of meeting these people I started to ponder the following questions:
• Do they work harder than us?
• Are these people worse off than us?
• Or is it just different?
• Do they have something that we don’t have?
We were on a river kayaking trip and spent three nights out in the jungle. I spent many hours talking with our Mayan guides. I came to the following conclusions:
• Yes physically they work harder than most of us, but not psychologically and emotionally.
• In my opinion, stress is not a major part of their life.
• It is just different.
• They have very open hearts and the simple things in life bring them a significant amount of joy. I know I had lost the experience of simple pleasures and I think there are a lot of other people like me.
I am not sure that our conditioning to work hard to have a better life is working out. The problem is that we are working hard and at the same time we are too stressed out to feel joy for the amazing abundance that we have in our lives.
Through the work I did, I changed this in my life, so I know it can be done and others can do it too.
Jacque Small
www.catalystcoach.ca
www.swingintoleadership.com
