“Ubuntu” comes from the Nguni Bantu languages of Southern Africa (Zulu, Xhosa, and others), carrying the meaning of “umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu” — “a person becomes a person through other people.” It is a philosophy of life that the being called “I” is not completed alone, but made within intertwined relationships and community. It became widely known to the world through figures like Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela of South Africa.
The heart of ubuntu is the sense that “your pain is my pain, your dignity is my dignity.” For me to be well, those beside me must be well too — a belief that I become whole not by beating others in competition, but by lifting one another up. In this one phrase, often rendered “I am because we are,” lives a warm worldview that places relationship at the center of life.
Why is this view a comfort to the heart? The isolation of having to do everything alone tires us easily. Ubuntu, from the opposite side, tells us, “it is all right to lean; we belong to one another.” The sense that a kindness offered to someone returns, in the end, to yourself too adds a quiet warmth to a harsh day.
The wise way to hold ubuntu is humble. Do not mistake it for “erase yourself and unconditionally conform to others” — a healthy ubuntu raises your dignity and another’s together; it does not make you a sacrificial offering. When troubles of relationship or loneliness grow too heavy, rather than enduring alone, take the hand of those near you and, if needed, a professional. As FortuneLeaf always does, what this old wisdom offers is not a grand art of getting ahead but a soft reflection that lets you feel again that you and others are connected — for we become, in the end, persons little by little within one another’s warmth.