Material Wealth Brings Unhappiness

By: Prof. Enrique Soriano

Sometime in late July, Finisterre Memorial Group Chair Jun Selma casually asked me if I can squeeze a few days off in October to join him in Europe for a visit to a mystical place called Finisterre, a rock bound peninsula on the west coast of Galicia, Spain. In Roman times, the place was believed to be the end of the known world. Jun explained to me that he was completely awed during his first visit that it inspired him to mount and develop an exciting project in Cebu called Finisterre Memorial Gardenz in honor of his late and beloved mother, Narding Selma.

After a couple of weeks, Jun excitedly followed it up with a formal invitation for me to join their annual pilgrimage walk.  He told me that I will be joining distinguished fellow caminoans headed by Cebu Country Club President Bob Gothong, Joe Soberano, Nonoy Tirol, Vic Yuvallos, Ramon Villordon Jr., Kim Kwang Seok, Shean Bedi and Fr. Joe Quilongquilong (JQ). Naturally I was honored but I felt it would take a miracle for me to clear my schedules as my calendar for 2019 and half of 2020 have already been booked for engagements in Asia. Despite the constraints and what looked like an unseen hand working to clear my schedule, everything fell into place and I was given the green light to join the group

In the weeks leading to the El Camino walk, I was impressed by the commitment and devotion of the “camino pilgrims” going about their assigned tasks. Their send-off and get together event hosted by Jun on the eve of their departure to France plus the way the two-week event was thoroughly organized was a pleasant surprise. And to top it off, if not for the constant bugging of top John Hay Golf executive Shean Bedi, a colleague during my property days a decade ago, I would not have made it. He was the quintessential project manager, making sure all logistical issues were covered.

There were moments where I ask myself, how can this band of successful individuals uncharacteristically subject themselves to the grueling walk for two consecutive weeks? Clearly the groups enthusiasm and their willingness to go through pain and suffering moved me. The most authentic moments in life are not the comforts that we all experience in our daily lives but what happens once we have been tested and after enduring and overcoming a crisis. In essence, real life is the real pilgrimage and it actually began even before we started the walk. To my mind, there is no such pilgrimage without experiencing setbacks and difficulties. And there is no pilgrim that will embark on a journey without a purpose or goal. Our respective journeys in life is our authentic pilgrimage and I believe the Camino de Santiago walk is meant to inspire and remind us that our sacrifices are nothing compared to what the pilgrims went through more than a thousand years ago.

 

Real Wealth in Simplicity 

Would you agree that those who possess more are often frustrated and unhappy? This virtue I learned during the course of my preparation for the pilgrimage. I was bothered at the thought of not bringing sufficient clothes during the walk but somehow in the bigger scheme of things, it made me realized how attached we are to unimportant things in our lives. You can still live joyfully.

I also realized that I can also live very well with few things. There is joy in simplicity, in poverty and you learn it in a pilgrimage. Then it suddenly hits you… how attached are we to unimportant things in our lives? Material things that take up so many space in our hearts and we think we can’t live without them. It’s a metaphor in life. Sometimes, we have a lot of things that we don’t need that can be a distraction, that can inevitably slow us down.

To be continued….

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Prof Enrique Soriano is a World Bank/IFC Governance Consultant, Senior Advisor of Post and Powell Singapore and the Executive Director of Wong + Bernstein, a research and consulting firm in Asia that serves family businesses, family offices and family foundations. He is an associate member of the Singapore Institute of Directors (SID) and an advisor to business families worldwide, a sought after governance speakers, and the author of many articles and publications, including two best-selling Family Business books (Ensuring Your Family Business Legacy)