The people we meet all make and shape the person who we are. And the most inspirational and virtuous ones are ideally the ones we try to live like.
I’ve been fortunate enough to have met and gotten to know many people who are exactly those two things.
One of the many is this guy called Tzwika, who I met in Israel when I was introduced to by a friend after he was invited for Thursday afternoon drinks (Friday night drinks in most other parts of the world). Twika lived on this commune he had built from nothing over 20 years ago into a self-sufficient haven, where he grows his own vegetables, has chickens that hatch eggs for him and he also makes his own olive oil.
In one afternoon I got to know a bit about him and what makes him the content man he was. And one thing stuck with me that I just realised I noted down immediately after. It was about the thing that we sometimes fall into the trap of thinking: ‘I’ll be happy when [insert arbitrary event or milestone here that can easily end up not as great as you think].
This is from my journal entry on 23rd October, 2015:
‘As Tzwika said, “Happiness is in the way, not at the end of the way”.