How Visiting My Native Village after 10 Years Changed My Idea of Happiness

Learnings from village life to make your life happier

I paid a visit to my native village after 10 years of living in town. Before going back here, I had some negative thoughts about village people; they are quarrelsome, hate each other, don’t have any high ambition, and hardly understand the true meaning of living. But after spending two weeks there, and now I can confidently say that I was entirely wrong in my thoughts.

After meeting too many locals — talking, eating, gossiping, and playing with them — it’s evident that they are much happier than the city dwellers.

I was born in that village but left the place when I was in elementary school. We moved to a city named Jessore with my family. My father — being a government employee — got transferred to different towns, and we all moved with him there. So, every five or six years, we moved from one city to another. Visiting my native village had become a rarity.

With time, I lost my interest to visit my native place. Not because that place changed a lot, but the people lived in the village — I hardly had good thoughts about them.

But now, after ten long years, being a grown man, I realized that I was wrong about my village people. They may not possess an MBA or MSc degree to earn their living, but they have mastered the HAPPINESS degree. They know how to live a happy and meaningful life while being in different towns, working for corporates, and meeting too many ambitious people — I failed to achieve.

Two weeks living in my native village and interacting with locals opened my eyes. Now, I realized that happiness is not just being ambitious or achieving financial success. True happiness is to enjoy and appreciate every moment we are experiencing in the present.

The corporate world puts you in a rat race for money and fame where the village life offers a gentle walk in serenity to enjoy the beauty of your surroundings.

In the following, I am going to share what my village people do and why they are happier than the city dwellers with corporate dreams. I hope it will help you understand the life you are living better.

Village People Know Each Other Well

Surprisingly, almost everyone knows the other person in my village. Not only that, they know their relatives as well. They love to know strangers as well. When I walked through the street with my friend, people frequently asked my friend about me and where I live.

I visited markets, went to other villages, and found the same thing with people. They literally know each other. If they don’t know you or find you like a stranger in their territory, they will show genuine interest in you. They will make a connection to you or at least try to connect somehow.

In just two weeks, I made more than twenty friends whom I didn’t even know before. This, knowing the other person, gives you a sense of connectedness and enhances your state of happiness. You feel that your presence matters, and you are one of them.

Living in different cities for most of my life, I have seen that things go the opposite here — in towns, you will find people using tons of social media apps to know people and make friends, but in the end, they turn out to be lonely and left out.

I have seen that city people want to know the other person only when they have a potential benefit in that relationship. I have attended many corporate events, I found the same thing — people talk to other people only to maximize their business goals or validate their own presence there.

I have seen enough of the fake smiles and so-called corporate etiquette that hardly connect people to a deep level. On the other hand, spending half a month in my village worked like an epiphany for me, and I found that village people are genuinely interested in each other and thus happier than city dwellers.

They Work Hard Physically

The truth is village people work so hard physically that they have no room for depression. When they put their head on a pillow at night after a long day of physical labor, they immediately fall asleep. They hardly think about fame, existential crisis, or the dream of a corporate world.

I am not saying that the village people don’t have problems. Of course, they have their fair share of struggle. But they deal with it more directly than the city-dudes. They do not overthink it like we, city-people, do.

In my village, most of the people work in the agriculture sector. They grow crops, vegetables, catch fish in the river or do shrimp business. Some of them work in shops and some in the brick-field as well. All of these works need physical labor. This extensive physical labor keeps them fit and mentally stress-free.

On the contrary, in towns, mostly we do the work where mental labor is more prominent. We also have constant mental pressures from our bosses, peers, business, or home. Stress also comes from our personal goals and the thinking of how to achieve that.

We, the city-people, live in a social bubble, where we work hard to have social validation to be happy and content. We are always worried about our virtual status — competing with others. But, in my village, I found people are happy without having any Instagram photos.

They Eat More Yet Remain Healthy

Village people eat a lot in terms of quantity, but still, they are healthier than the city-people.

They eat the food they cultivate themselves, mostly fresh foods — vegetables from their own fields, fish from their own ponds, meat from their poultry firms. It keeps them healthier than city dwellers. Because in cities, we often get foods that come by traveling from different parts of the country and we hardly get the fresh ones. When we get the vegetables, most likely, it’s already one or two days old.

We, the city people, call ourselves conscious eater, and we nearly count every calorie we take. On the contrary, people in the village eat more, in quantity. One of the reasons is they work too hard physically. So, they take more food to get more energy. They never measure their food as we do.

We live a life with continuous fear of gaining weight or being obese. We are too conscious about our looks. In contrast, the village people don’t really care about it. They eat whatever amount they want to, yet they never gain weight. Their hard physical labor makes their body fit and healthier.

Thus, they enjoy more freedom when it comes to eating their favorite foods. While we, city-people, run a mental battle before having a lovely meal.

They Are Sport Enthusiasts

I never thought this visit to my native village after ten long years would be so surprising and feel-good. It turned out to be a great trip because of the sport enthusiasts people I found there. And it’s not only in my village, but all the villagers in different areas are also equally enthusiastic about sports.

During my stay, it became a routine to go to the field every day in the afternoon and participate in different sports, including volleyball, cricket, football, and badminton. I was too overwhelmed to find out that they are much better at volleyball than my friends in the city.

From young to old — everyone in the village is interested in sports. There is always one sport or another running in the ground. Before every tournament, they disseminate the news through miking. So, everyone knows which team will perform on which days.

If the people are not participating in one, they are watching. If they cannot witness the match due to their works, they get the news from others. I found them deeply curious about all sports competitions.

I saw little children are playing football and volleyball and gradually becoming better and better. All my life, I have seen the city-kids struggling with sports as they have tremendous study-loads and don’t have many sports fields as well.

City-parents are more conscious about the career of their kids by focusing more on academic studies. But the village-parents send their children free into nature to learn lessons from their surroundings. It makes the village-kids happier as they experience their childhood with joy and excitement that town-kids hardly imagine.

Village People Worry Less

One of the secrets to the village dweller’s happiness is they worry less than their city counterparts. Village life is quite simple. Their daily life is associated with hard work, interacting with people, enjoying sports in the afternoon, and having gossips in the evening. There is hardly any room for complexity, high ambitions, social status, or competition for better selfies.

Though they are not that career-oriented, they are quite satisfied with their day to day life. I mean, they live their lives with simplicity. Therefore, they are happier than the ambitious city-people.

We, the city-dwellers, are always in a rush. We are not content as our so-called gurus tell us to go for more and never get satisfied. So, we follow that path and crave more from life, and in most cases, end in frustration. We read lots of self-help books every year. But in reality, the village people who hardly read any of those books live a happy life than us.

They Laugh A Lot

Being serious and ambitious ones, we almost forget to laugh out loud. We hardly remember when we last laughed our heart out. We are under constant stress — worried about our future, our children’s future, and more.

On the contrary, the village people seem indifferent about the future. So, they enjoy a balanced mental state than us.

They spend their time doing nothing but enjoying their lives by interacting with others, participating in sports, gossiping, and laughing their hearts out over a discussion.

Learnings From the Village Life to Enhance Your Happiness

You can make your life happier by learning lessons from village dwellers. A slight shift in your mindset is enough to set you free from the rat race and live happier.

➰Focus on the present moment. Don’t weigh your life down with future expectations. Work smart in the present, the future will be okay.

➰Know your colleagues and neighbors. Have some interest in people around you. It will develop your relationship with others and make you feel connected.

➰Try some sports in your leisure time. It can be anything — running, table tennis, badminton, basketball, carom board, chess, etc. Be a sports enthusiast like the village people. It will fill your mind with excitement and joy.

➰Worry less and laugh a lot. Have amazing conversations with the people around you. Don’t be a moody corporate dude, rather be an interesting one with fun and smiles.

➰Allow simplicity to guide your daily life. Village people are happy because they are guided by simplicity. On the contrary, we city-people make our life too complex with all the thoughts and intricacies.

To Conclude

My two-week stay in the village gave me a new perspective on life and happiness. We often think of life as a race for greatness or achieving financial success.

We run a race for more and try to find happiness in material things and achieving fame. What we ignore is living in the present moment with what we have in our hands.

I believe spending a few days in a rural setting can teach us more about living an active and happy life. I experienced it myself, and I highly recommend you take the learnings with you in your pursuit of happiness.

Have a happy life!

Thank you for reading.

Photo Gallery

The following photos are taken by the author and he owns the rights to the photos.

If you are interested to read more of my writings, you may read the following one published in The Ascent.