Life hacks: Ubuntu
The goal behind this column is to explore various concepts that lie behind a word or a term adopted by different cultures that are worth investigating and even adopted in our lives for our growth and well-being. One such term is Ubuntu, which embodies an African philosophy where each individual needs to operate with kindness, compassion and integrity towards another. It is essentially about togetherness and how all of our actions have an impact on others and on society. Former South African president Nelson Mandela once said: “A traveller through a country would stop at a village and he didn’t have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food, entertain him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu but it will have various aspects.” Former US president Barack Obama said at the 2018 Nelson Mandela annual lecture that Mandela “understood the ties that bind the human spirit”. “There is a word in South Africa − Ubuntu − that describes his greatest gift: his recognition that we are all bound together in ways that can be invisible to the eye; that there is a oneness to humanity; that we achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves with others and caring for those around us,” he...