The Basics Are All You Need

On a cool November Sunday night following a long day of work for the both of us before
the Thanksgiving weekend, I decided to challenge my mother, Joyce Mburu on a topic we have
discussed from my earliest memories. As a dedicated Christian, Mother and Nursing Assistant
who immigrated to the United States from Athens, Greece just about 19 years ago this
December after moving to Europe from her hometown of Nairobi, Kenya and living there for
over ten years, Ms. Mburu has lived quite an interesting life filled with opportunities, love and
heartbreak, and in her opinion a good understanding of what a good life means for herself and
for others.
Having strived for a life better than the on her parents were able to provide her an her
siblings, Ms. Mburu took a daring step and moved to Athens, Greece straight out of high school
where she eventually worked for a few fashion designers, splitting her time between the city
where she grew up and her family remained with the city she grew to love and found herself.
She was able to help out her family financially and lived in both nations while getting married
and having a child until she was grateful enough to file for and obtain a Green Card for her
family, and move to The United States, a nation where she was promised opportunities to better
herself and work to provide for her entire family, while offering her children more opportunities to
succeed than she was initially given, for them to do the same for their kids as well. And while
she doesn’t personally recognize that she has been successful in obtaining a good job to do so,
I can personally determine that her hard work has not gone unnoticed and has allowed her to
provide her family with a good life as she determines, put her own children, nieces and nephews
through schools and programs that have allowed them access to opportunities to better
themselves and lead a more successful life than her own.
Seated in front of the Living Room television which is different from her usual stay in the
Kitchen Nook down the hall, and watching an episode of a program covering Investigative
Reports is what she considers the best way to spend an evening before another challenging day
of caring for her patients as an essential worker. And granted that we are in the middle of a
global pandemic, her ideas of a good life are repeated almost daily to her children: “Go to a
good school so that you can get a good job… and not have to suffer.” For as long as I could
remember I have had these exact words recounted to me, and so while I knew what her answer
was for my general question of what a good life is, I wanted to apply some more context to her
answers and reasoning in efforts to try and understand why this exact model would be what is
considered a good life.
Following further inquiry, I found her definition to favor the three essential necessities for
survival: Food, Shelter and Water, while adding a Car and enough money to live comfortably.
While I understood the value and good in nourishment and a roof over one’s head, I was
especially entertained in how a car fit into the mix. This description is applicable to a general
basis for what she believes everyone should have in a good life, and what she considers for
herself personally. As described, Ms. Mburu concluded that as long as she has lived in the
United States, more specifically while residing in a small town without reliable transportation,
that a car is necessary in order to gain food and water and earn money to provide for a shelter,
the general resources defined as contributing to sufficiency.
 Once I worked towards gaining some context and asking whether a car would also be
necessary to have the same needs and if so, why, she answered that the resources found in a
certain location would allow for contrasting living standards and based on that, one could
differently and more definitively specify what a good life entails. Perhaps based on this single
mode of transportation and the location of its availability, she feels able to work towards
securing each of these resources not only for herself and her children, but additionally her
grandchildren and more nieces and nephews who wish to make progress towards obtaining the
resources necessary for a good life based on the environment of her hometown of Nairobi,
Kenya.
Due to living and having gained Citizenship in the United States for quite some time, I
wished to check in on Ms. Mburu’s progress towards living a good life, based on the guidelines
she provided. I initially questioned whether she believed she had already experienced the highs
in her life, and whether she is currently living the good life she specifically described, to which
she answered a surprising yet definitive no. While it is true that we have a home that is able to
house all of our six-person family, she earns enough to pay for the food and water we require
and send to her family residing back in Kenya, and does own a car that can take her to obtain
those necessities, she expressed that she doesn’t yet feel comfortable with what she has, and
that it is not sufficient for her particular standard of living comfortably. When asked if by the end
of her life whether or not she would consider it well-lived, she was unsure of how the future
would play out and quick to reject a reflection on all of her life’s experiences and moments just
yet.
I then tried to have her envision being content with how much she makes and her ability
to provide for her family within the next 5 to 10 years, however she was more confident about
her children’s ability to achieve what she wishes for herself, and the vision she sees for her
family. Relating back to the previous question of whether she has seen her best days, Ms.
Mburu feels as though seeing her children live out her dreams will additionally contribute to her
having a good life, and she is more hopeful for the future and what it has to bring.
Towards the end of my brief yet introspective interview, I asked for what she considered
to be a good life for her children, and her response was reminiscent of her original answer to the
same question as it applied to her. She was more optimistic for the future of her children, and as
aforementioned saw her own success through what she has wished and worked for as for her
children, which is to get a good job that allows them to not have to work extensively, while being
able to live out whatever it is that her children dream of. When responding as to why her
definition for a good life for her children is more than just basic survival necessities, it is due to
how she views her children as having better access to opportunities than she had at the same
age, which is why she considers their ability to live a life of higher quality than just surviving, but
experiencing as well, more realistic.
I found the discussion had between Ms. Mburu and I to be very much indicative of what
she considers to be a good life, and reflects some of the learnings from the text and resources
provided relating to Jonathan Haidt’s The Happiness Hypothesis. The most parallel themes
include reciprocity and the correlation between happiness and meaning, in the sense of human
behavior that leads to happiness. With reciprocity, through supporting others which requires a
sense of empathy who are able to then live and lead a successful life in one’s eyes can lead to
the fulfillment of the standard for a good life in one’s eyes. For happiness and meaning, two
concepts which can contrast each other when not backed by pure intentions but support each
other when found in relationships, and working to better oneself as well as other, which is best
described in the concept of Ikigai, which then results in happiness found in meaning, if
importance is found in a good life which consists of work and strong relationships, then
happiness can be found.
Overall, this experience has been beneficial in my own understanding of the teachings of
the resources from this subject, through its application in the real world and through someone
involved in my everyday and personal life. I learned of some of the values Ms. Mburu holds, and
how it relates to her overall general view of success in a world and situation different from the
one that she grew up in. While I have heard this explanation for her answer to this question, I
value it more and take it as motivation to not only push myself to actualize these goals for
myself, but for my mother as well.