True Happiness is Found Through Acts of Generosity and Compassion

Privilege

As a white, cis gender, male from the USA, I was born into the type of privilege that many people dream of.  Even being born into a “poor” family with a single mother of two children, I still had better opportunities than the vast majority of humanity.
However, these early experiences gave me a small sense of what it is like for people to go without basic needs and the fear and anxiety that goes hand in hand with living on the edge of survival.
Now, I hope to leverage my privilege to help others and do what I can to bring a little bit more equality to the world.

Heart Opening Adventures

In 2007, I traveled abroad for the first time with the desire to have experiences outside of the small world I existed in.  My travels through Central America and beyond have opened my eyes, mind and heart to the infinite beauty of our world and also the startling differences in how people live.  Although the chasm between the rich and the poor is mind blowing, I have found it is not directly corralated to happiness.  In many instances I discovered that many people who have the least are often more joyful than those who have more than they need.

Pedal Beyond

While studying Environmental Science at the University of Oregon, I wanted a deeper understanding of the people I met during my travels so with the little money I had I bought a bicycle and a tent and pedaled through the backroads of places like Indonesia, Tasmania, India and New Zealand.  I was invited into homes, shared the dinner tables and lives of incredible people I met along the way and learned one very powerful lesson:  We are all the same and have the same basic desires: clean water, healthy food, adequate shelter, healthcare, safe and clean places to live and enjoy, meaningful work and education for our children.  After 27 countries and 8 of them on my bicycle “Amelia” I discovered that these are the only requirements for a happy life and it’s only because few people have so much that so many people can’t have these simple necessities.

Trials and Tribulations of Generosity

In 2013, after working 60 hour weeks, while living in an abandoned building and saving money for a year in Australia, I decided to do more to help others.
First, I raised money to give bicycles to people in need.  I struggled and raised very little money, however, I found a new sense of purpose.  I made my way back to Guatemala in 2014 and fell in love with the city of Xela.  I started a 501(c)3 nonprofit called Xela Collective with the aim to provide art opportunities to the community.  A major focus was our immersive art festival called Festival Quinto Sol that ran for three years.  Our long term goal was to build a community art center.  In 2019, I ended the project because I was unable to motivate locals to support the project.  I was exhausted beyond measure, I had used up my life savings and although we had done some incredible work, I felt like a failure.  I felt completely disheartened at the idea of helping others when so few seemed to care about my efforts. I took some time to lick my wounds and thought deeply about where I wanted to go in life. 

Keep it Simple

Februrary of 2021, in the darkness of the Covid pandemic while recovering from a knee surgery, I decided to change course and do the most simple act of generosity I could concieve in that moment… I asked a neighbor if I could shovel the snow from their driveway.  I chose to make it into a short video, I danced a bit, and suddenly the joy of helping others came back in a big way.  In that moment I became determined to show others that the purest form of joy that humans can experience is found through simple acts of generosity and compassion.  

Family

In what has felt like a blink of an eye our family of “Goodlebrities” has grown to over 1.5 MILLION and our videos have received millions of views.  We have raised and given tens of thousands of dollars to some worthy and deserving humans.
More importantly, we have received countless messages from people who have begun to implement simple good deeds into their own lives and beautiful stories about how their lives have improved because of the generous acts.