A couple of months ago, I had the privilege of spending Easter weekend with my beautiful girlfriend’s family. It would have been a twelve-hour drive for me to go home to be with my family, and her parents are only 45-minutes away. But it was more than just convenient — her family is wonderful. The food was delicious and the church service was wonderful, but the company was the best part. We have both been blessed with wonderful families, and I have enjoyed getting to know Stefanie’s family since we have been dating.

Another great thing about that weekend was all of the Easter candy. Especially the chocolate. Oh, how I love chocolate. There were little chocolate eggs, bigger chocolate eggs, chocolate eggs with peanut butter and the list goes on. There was so much, in fact, that Stef’s mom sent a lot of it home with us when we left. Money in the bank. So Stefanie put all of the little chocolate eggs into a candy dish, which she placed on an end table in her apartment.

Flash forward two weeks: the little chocolate eggs were almost gone, which was very disappointing. I had eaten some of them, but there were a lot more missing than I thought that I had eaten. I never thought much of it. I probably had actually eaten more than I was remembering and I was sure that Stef had eaten a few. No big deal, right?

Wrong.

One evening I decided that I was going to make some spaghetti for our dinner. I located all of the ingredients: spaghetti noodles, country Italian spaghetti sauce, bread for garlic toast. Once everything was assembled, I was ready to commence cooking, which would begin with boiling the water for the noodles in a big pot. So I opened up the drawer under the oven (which is where Stef keeps her pots and pans), and was startled at what I found: nine half-eaten little chocolate eggs.

And tiny little mouse turds… everywhere.

They were in the pots and pans, in the lids and all over the drawer. You could see little teeth marks imprinted on the chocolate, which was still partially wrapped in the foil in which it was packaged. (Stefanie would like me to pause and let the readers know that she does, in fact, keep a clean and tidy apartment and that this is the first mouse she has ever had. I can attest to the cleanliness, and I have assured her that millions of people the world over have clean living spaces and still get mice. It happens.) It was at this moment, while standing slack-jawed assessing the damage, that I got angry. I was pissed.

I know that he’s just a little mouse with a little mouse brain, and was only following his instincts. But he was eating chocolate that should have been eaten by me and using the pots and pans for purposes other than cooking. I could just see him laying back in his little mouse-house laughing with a little mouse-cackle and plotting his next attack. But he had another thing coming.

We bought traps. Lots of traps. Glue traps and spring traps. And we placed them in very strategic locations. Three glue traps surrounded the area where the candy dish was, forming a little triangle-of-death. One more glue trap, baited with a little chocolate egg, was placed behind the stove. And a single spring trap baited with peanut butter was placed in the very place that he inflicted the most damage: the pots and pans drawer.

And then we waited. We enjoyed our spaghetti dinner, watched a movie and retired for the evening. The next morning, Stef told me that she thought she had heard a noise in the middle of the night that sounded like the mousetrap had detonated. So I went to inspect the drawer, and a sly grin swept across my face as I slowly opened the drawer. Boo-yah. Have some of that.

So let that be a lesson to the entire mouse community of Columbia, Missouri. I will not tolerate your shenanigans. If you try and steal my chocolate, you will be dealt with in a swift and decisive manner. Don’t test me.

There is an ancient Bantu word in Southern Africa called “ubuntu.” It is a classical African concept with no equivalent English word that compares. It can only be described as a philosophy, a way of being. It’s not something you say, it’s something you do. It’s something you are.

Roughly defined, ubuntu is the connection with others and the willingness to see not just yourself, but all people, do well. Ubuntu is the thread connecting the spider web of humanity, and it is through this web that we discover ourselves and the potential of those around us. Ubuntu is human engagement in an existence of co-creation. It is a life lived with an open mind, open hands and an open heart.

Nobel Peace Prize winner and native South African, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, says it like this: “It is about the essence of being human, it is part of the gift that Africa will give the world. It embraces hospitality, caring about others, being able to go the extra mile for the sake of others. We believe that a person is a person through another person, that my humanity is caught up, bound up, inextricably, with yours.”

I am lucky enough to know this ubuntu. For me ubuntu is the family that raised a little girl with unconditional love. Ubuntu is the teachers who challenged her to achieve and guided her along the way. Ubuntu is her friends who were always there in good times and bad. Ubuntu is that girl, all-grown-up, staring with awe out of a plane window over Africa. Ubuntu is the family she’ll meet there who won’t give up no matter the obstacles. Ubuntu is all those who will touch her life in the future. Each and everyone of them share a connection rooted in integrity, compassion, and generosity.

After 27 years of imprisonment in apartheid South Africa, Nelson Mandela knows what ubuntu is, too: “Ubuntu does not mean that people should not address themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to be able to improve?”

Imagine what the world would be like if we took more time to ask not how we can improve ourselves, but how we can empower those around us to make the world better for all. What we can do to contribute.

Admittedly, as I was writing this I realized how much of my own ubuntu I’ve let unravel since being away from Africa. I spend so much of my day vainly trying to improve myself, whether it’s hours at the gym, being engrossed in some book for my master’s dissertation or worrying about finding funding for next year. I’m just as guilty as anyone for not finding the time to live more responsibly, more graciously. It’s often those times when I’ve asked myself not what people can do for me, but what I can do for them, that my life has been more productive and fulfilled; when I’ve been happiest.

It shouldn’t be a challenge. I need not look hard to find ubuntu in daily life:

It’s felt in the beat of joyous street traffic and people making their way through the day. Ubuntu.

It’s in the honest laughter of friends sharing private jokes. Ubuntu.

It’s in the hard work of a doctor working to save a life, a teacher steering a pupil towards success, a lawyer researching an important case, a construction worker toiling away to provide for a family. Ubuntu.

It’s in the reconciliation of former enemies. Ubuntu.

It’s in the formation of new friendships. Ubuntu.

In crisis and triumph. Ubuntu.

In tears and laughter. Ubuntu.

In generosity and hardship. Ubuntu.

Because out of many we truly are one. And many there are.

Ubuntu…

Algerio is his name. I keep thinking of an African country and how his name sort of rolls off your tongue before it encounters some turbulence. He’s spouting sentences like blood from a severed artery. Words were flying out of his mouth before I spotted him and that had to be some ten yards away. He sounds like all kind of crazy and I haven’t even put my keys in my pocket.

One of the first things they teach you in sales is to always talk and keep the momentum in your corner. You can hear it first hand when a telemarketer calls. They’ll go into a pitch full speed and you don’t have much choice in saying anything politely until you’ve had enough and finally interrupt them with a “fuck off”.

I watch this fasttalker and it’s hanging on my uvula. It’s welling behind my tongue. That hard good bye. That venom of disrespect. I’m a nice enough guy when I’m not in a hurry. But I hate the fact that the junkies and whores and panhandlers see me and think I’m a goddamn easy target. I’m not in the mood for a sob story or a hustler’s sell. I’ve heard every last one and they all sound like desperation.

I grit my teeth without changing my expression and he’s still talking. Algerio must be in his late forties or early fifties and while I listen to his palaver, my eyes wander and scour his body. He has a beard, somewhat trimmed and graying at the edges. His clothes are colorful but ordinary, a polo shirt and jeans with average sneakers. On his wrist is a watch. Silver, but not fancy. I can’t tell if he’s homeless or simply one of Atlanta’s own oddballs.

He’s losing me and he can tell, so he gets to the point. At any point I could simply tell him to get lost but I don’t. Instead he has my attention and is guiding it toward the front of my vehicle. The truck has a bent fender. It sticks out several inches and almost touches the ground. Like an alley cat, he crouches low and quickly, offering to fix it for me. He says he has cable ties in his truck, which is near a taxi. He casts a bony and worn finger across the parking lot and I squint towards the northeast corner. There is a taxi, but I can’t find a truck. I tell him I don’t have far to go but he insists. I tell him I can fix it later but he’s already off to get the supplies.

Inside the grocery store I grab my two items and checkout. From the exit doors, I watch Algerio saunter back to my truck and duck under the chassis. When I arrive he’s just a pelvis and two legs jutting out from under the bumper. He talks and works, using a old nylon string to mend my bumper. He says that folks need to help each other out. He says young people are always about the game and that’s no way to live you life.

In a few seconds it’s over and he crawls out from under the bumper. I shake his hand and thank him. Against my better judgment I offer him a couple bucks for his handiwork and he declines at first but then accepts and jams the two crumpled bills into his jeans.

We part ways and he bobs through the cars, making his way up the lot. I ask a question to no one. What was the purpose of trusting him? Was he a shiftie or just a man concerned about my truck; about my well-being? Most people would be happy to be rid of a stranger and call it good. For some reason I opted to listen and I don’t think it has anything to do with being humble or courteous or kind or generous or any goddamn adjective you’d call a Boy Scout.

I don’t see Algerio the next day and I doubt I ever will. This happens all the time. People will come and go and all I get is their stories. Bullshit or not, it’s how I will remember them. I wonder if they know that.

Cardboard boxes are an interesting and integral part of the human experience. As children, we are more interested in the cardboard boxes our toys come in than the toys themselves. As high school grads, we typically move out of the house or away to college, toting a packed carload of mismatched cardboard boxes. Even as adults, we sometimes go through several moves and almost always end up with a few stacked boxes in our garage, basement or attic, where they sit as the keepers of stuff we don’t want to toss but we don’t want to see every day.

This week, however, cardboard boxes were not a good thing.

Wednesday marked the day our company made its first (and hopefully only) round of layoffs since the economy tanked. The drama unfolded when a rumor got started and fear rippled through the offices. Left without a choice, our boss did the deed a little earlier than planned. One at a time, people were called into the conference room. And one at a time, they came out with furrowed brows and glances that avoided eye contact. Over the next few days, they carried their things in boxes to their cars and met with coworkers as they passed on their projects to someone else… someone who didn’t lose his job.

There’s something unsettling about watching your coworkers, and oftentimes friends, walk down the hall, their heads bent down, carrying cardboard boxes out to their cars.

One employee, 62 and hoping to retire in three years, seemed to take is layoff fairly well, though his position in the company meant he had many important business relationships that will continue to be important even after he leaves. I waited a day and a half to approach him, as I had seen his temper before and didn’t want to witness it again. His reaction was a mixture of sadness and anger.

He shook his bald head, ringed with peppered hair and adjusted his glasses as I sat there and bit my lip, trying to find the words.

“I’m really sorry about everything,” I said awkwardly, trying to show my sympathy on my face.

“It’s just one big mess,” he replied. “I knew things were bad last Tuesday when we lost two of our project. But I didn’t think the cut would be this bad.”

We talked a little about what he might do next, how his wife reacted and what kinds of things I would need to take over when he left.

Another employee had an opposite, and puzzling, reaction. He didn’t seem miffed in the least about the news, and said he had been looking for another job anyway.

“What can ya do?” he shrugged his shoulders, his blue eyes wide, and running his hands through his receding hairline. “They gotta do what they gotta do. So I’ll just take the summer, play golf, and drink beer. Sounds a lot more fun to me anyways.” His disposition the rest of the week was normal, if not more happy-go-lucky than usual.

The third employee who was laid off made things a little more emotional for the rest of the office. A family man with a huge sense of love and humor, he was still calling everyone “buddy.” I quietly approached his office, meaning to break the ice by asking him a couple questions about a project I was working on. I was only half-listening as he kindly gave me the answer. Finally, as he was searching through a stack of CDs for some photos to give me, I managed to stutter out, “I’m sorry, Walt, about everything.”

He is a very large African-American, who could be mistaken for the bouncer of our office but is really a gentle teddy bear. His shoulders, extremely wide and broad, shrugged.

“Aw, it’s OK,” he said with a small smile. “It really is. You know, I know they didn’t want to do it, and I know things just aren’t looking good right now. My wife is graduating with her master’s this weekend.” A sparkle gleamed in his eye. “I’m proud of her. It’s just a bittersweet time. Being a little sad about leaving here but happy for her. I’m really not worried. I walk by faith, not by sight, and God’s gonna take care of us.”

I smiled, his words lifting my spirit. There was something about his statement that dissipated the shroud of disappointment and fear about the situation. The layoffs had made everyone in the office straighten up a bit, watch their actions. But Walt’s perspective seemed to take the pressure off a little bit. Working hard and treating everyone with respect was the most you could do in life.

So while physical cardboard boxes can indicate both good and bad changes, Walt made me realize that life is kind of like a cardboard box. If we fill our time with things that don’t last and worry about what tomorrow never brings, our boxes will collapse in times of trial. But if we fill our boxes with hard work, respect and love for others, and a deep appreciation and thankfulness for all we have in life, we walk way from any situation with a box full of blessings that can carry through anything.