Life Lessons from Francis
By Keith Elkins
We all have morning rituals after we get out of bed. After I go through mine at home, I go to the same restaurant for breakfast and to read the morning newspaper. My favorite part of the paper is the style section with the comic strips. Most of the rest of the paper is mostly gloom and doom so I try to skim past most of that. Have you ever noticed that whether its television news or newspapers, the media seems to market bad news because after all bad news sells.
After going to the same place for breakfast for quite some time I noticed a gentleman, who’s job it is to make sure that the dining area as well as the bathrooms and even the parking lot were always clean for all of the customers. He always walked around with a smile on his face and greeted each customer with good morning, good morning always repeating it twice and he never seemed to be in a poor mood. I became quite intrigued by his attention to detail and attitude when it came to keeping everything so clean. This job most people would turn their nose up to thinking that they were too good to do it. However he approached it as an artist like Picasso giving great attention to every detail no matter how routine the task was.
One day I had to ask this gentleman what his name was. He told me his name was Francis. I noticed that he had what seemed to be an African accent. I asked him where he was from and he enthusiastically said that he was from Kenya. His accent was thick but his enthusiasm was contagious and I worked very hard to focus on understanding what he was saying to me. Francis told me that in his home country he was an executive assistant to high level politicians. Francis also told me about how proud he was of his children and how they had worked hard to create successful careers. Francis was responsible for sending money to his children in Kenya to make sure that they could go to school and get the education necessary for them to be successful.
I then did what is normally not very polite but I had to know. I asked Francis how old he was. Francis then told me that he was 63 years old. I asked why he always seemed to be so happy? Francis gave me four very simple happiness principles. They are as follows:
1. Be thankful for your life, your family, and your friends and the opportunities that you are given.
2. Don’t measure your success based on the possessions that you acquire, measure your success on your contribution and service to your community, your family, and society in general.
3. Accept that every challenge, failure or obstacle that faces you in life is part of your lifelong education and helps to mold WHO you become.
4. Realize that all you really need is a full stomach, a purpose in life, and love for yourself and the people in your life especially the ones that are hardest to love because they need it the most.
I still look forward to having conversations with Francis as much as I can. It is amazing how you can meet a complete stranger and have a conversation, only to realize how much more there is to learn about being a completely happily successful human being not just a human doing.
Final Thought:
Keep your mind and heart open, and always give yourself away.
