From the US to Bali with Love: My Transformative Journey

In my previous article, What is Love and How Does It Transform Us?, I presented Peck's notion of love: "The will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth." In this article, I write about my good friend, Wira, and how our friendship played an instrumental role in shaping the person that I am today.

My Life As a Doctoral Student

The year is 2012. I was knee-deep into the research component of my doctoral program in leadership studies. Although I loved the study of leadership and teaching leadership at the university, I found myself struggling in the dissertation phase of my research.

For several years, I had wanted to combine my training in leadership and education with my past experience as a musician and graphic designer. I had been reading books and journal articles on leadership, education, and the arts for weeks on end. I worked with a professor-mentor that employed the use of the creative arts as a tool to teach leadership in her coursework in order to understand arts-based teaching methods for leadership development. I had proposed to research a class that I was co-teaching with my professor on creativity and leadership.

My committee found the study’s methodology and design to be problematic. Action research, or research of one’s own practice, is suitable for educational research but can prove challenging. The committee knew that it would be hard work for me to prepare for the class, teach the class, and research the class. I would also have to be able to manage my biases as the researcher and instructor and be able to determine that learning, which can come from any course taught at the university or experience on a job, came from my course and nowhere else. As an instructor, I also could not coerce or pressure students to participate in my study. Would I even be able to conduct this study if no student enrolled in the course wanted to be in the study?

The experience of writing a dissertation was nerve-wracking. Producing a literature review in advance of my research involved months of reading different sources of information and keeping track of very diverse and interesting ideas. I knew that, if I were to change my topic to one that could utilize a more straightforward research methodology, I would still have to spend an additional 3-4 months at the library reading journal articles and books.

I had already been enrolled in my doctoral program for 4 years, and there was no end in sight. How long might it take me? 7 years? 9 years? I did not know. A wall of library books spanning for miles seemed to stand between me and the finish line. There was no way for me to get around that.?

My love life was not faring well either. My life partner at the time could not understand why I was doing the work that I was doing. To be fair, neither did I. My misery and busyness contributed?to the end of our 11-and-a-half year relationship. In retrospect, I knew this was something that needed to happen. I was not growing from my relationship. Yet, at this same time, I was depressed over the breakup. I felt I?wasted my life, that I gave up my twenties for a person that wasn't quite right for me. I could not help but dwell upon how my life could have been different. I was in the biggest rut?of my life. There was a genuine need to escape.

Dabbling in Balinese Culture

I had a friend I often confided in. Her name was Tiki. Tiki was an enthusiastic counseling student and community organizer that attended my university. My university required its students to engage in study abroad experiences. As part of satisfying her international requirement, Tiki wanted to organize a counseling course in Bali, Indonesia. The idea led me to begin thinking about the possibility of living in Bali and teaching leadership.?

I started reading about Balinese culture and felt the need to travel the island of Bali to meet changemakers from all walks of life in order to better understand how they employ Balinese cultural values in their leadership. That would become my dissertation topic. When I submitted my proposal to my dissertation committee and successfully defended it, I was ecstatic. Conducting dissertation research in Bali seemed to be the perfect solution for me. I could get away from my ex-partner and all of the places where I was stuck reading and studying. I was looking for new and fresh inspiration on the beautiful island of Bali.

The Start of the Journey

I knew that, the moment my plane hit the ground in Bali in 2014, I wanted to meet and get to know the local Balinese people. From my readings, I knew there?was something curiously different about this culture. I wanted to understand what those differences were. One of the first people I met in Bali was a young Balinese guy by the name of Wira, who would eventually become my very best friend to this very day. In Balinese, the name Wira? means “hero”. He was definitely my hero because he opened the door that led me into his beautiful culture. Wira volunteered his time to take me to all of my dissertation interviews on his motorbike. He was simply interested in my work and the people I was meeting. For me, I was not comfortable driving?a motorbike in Indonesia. Wira made sure that I arrived to all of my interviews on time and did his very best to step into the role of interpreter, using a dictionary translator on his handphone, when it was needed.

We traveled the island to meet my interviewees. They included a renowned dancer seeking to protect and preserve Balinese legong dance; a hotel manager;?an organic farmer; an eco-resort builder; an architect; a founder of a museum designed to protect and preserve Balinese art and culture; a royal family member; community organizers that worked with village children, women, and persons with disabilities; an educator; an environmentalist; and a politician. We were deeply moved with how these individuals were very proud of their ethnic identity as Balinese and the reverence that they had for nature, their ancestors, community, religion, spirituality, and how these things informed their style of leadership.

We visited some of the most sacred temples of the island. Wira made sure I was properly dressed to enter the temples with a white-colored shirt and sarong, which is a large cloth that wraps around the waist. Men also wear a cloth hat known as an udeng. Wira taught me how to properly tie a sarong and udeng as well.?

We admired the cultivation of rice and the beauty that rice fields bring to Bali’s terrain. We walked rice fields and rice terraces which have been feeding the local population for hundreds of years. I observed how the rice terraces were supplied water through a network of canals that were turned on and off in such a way that villagers have the opportunity to take turns using water to plant and grow rice in different parts of the year. I saw how ducks would be brought in to eat up seeds left from a harvest and produce natural fertilizer for the next cycle of rice.?

We went to his village where we had the opportunity to make lawar, which is a fine collection of vegetables such as long beans, coconut, meat, herbs, and spices–all finely chopped. My arm was definitely sore from all of the chopping. I also learned how to make Balinese satay lilit, which is made by wrapping a grounded mixture of fish, coconut, thick coconut milk, lime juice, shallot, and pepper around a piece of lemongrass.

We met local artists, painters, fabric makers, woodcarvers, and musicians. I found myself asking myself what compels such attention to details that these arts and crafts involve in a time when speed and efficiency is highly valued around the world. As I conversed with others,? I have come to learn that making art allows one to connect with their ancestors, with their spirit, and what they understood to be God.

Wira learned from me as much as I learned from him. He was one of many young Balinese who moved out of their villages to work in hotels and restaurants. As he traveled with me, I could tell his heart changed. He began to strongly respect his own cultural identity. He wanted to show people his culture and island, particularly what people?were doing in the villages. He wanted to empower the local community. He wanted to help young people like himself to appreciate what he perceived to be the richness of Balinese communities and culture.?

Our interest in Balinese community empowerment and community-based tourism reform led us to create an enterprise providing educational tourism experiences known today as Five Pillar Experiences. We have worked with universities as diverse as Singapore Management University and University of San Diego and have even worked with large NGOs such as Rockefeller and Japan Foundations.?

As a community tourism provider, we showcase the economy, social life, environment, culture, and educational initiatives of local Balinese changemakers in our programming. To build our programming, we explored villages with an open sense of curiosity of what they might offer—not assuming they are boring, quiet places. We have encountered individuals wanting to protect and preserve quickly forgotten arts such as fabric weaving, and individuals trying to conserve the natural beauty of the land and promote ancient organic agricultural practices. We have met individuals who come up with solutions to meeting unmet needs of marginalized populations such as the physically challenged, women, and children living in rural areas. I was privileged to be exposed to so many great individuals from Balinese villages. I wanted other visitors to experience the wonder and excitement that I experienced from the moment I arrived on the island.

The Singapore Years (2018-2023)

In 2017, the sacred Mt. Agung suddenly became active. Tourism in Bali slowed. A volcanic eruption was predicted. We did not know when it was going to happen. This situation lasted for several months. During this time, we lost a lot of business that we had worked very hard to generate. I ended up having to leave what had become my home and moved to Singapore to work. Eventually Mt. Agung subsided, but in less than two years, the COVID-19 pandemic would arrive. During this time, there was a point when tourism completely ceased.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Wira went back to his village. He had to learn to grow his own food like many other young people had to learn how to do because they could no longer rely on tourism to give them the money that they needed to buy food. I hired Wira to work on some projects for me so that he could have an income while also continuing to grow the business.

In 2022, I spent a month in Cambodia and began writing my book on love and leadership, which would be completed just three months later before I returned to the corporate sector in Singapore. However, in 2023, the universe gave me several signs that I needed to return to Bali. My corporate role in Singapore as a facilitator and coach abruptly ended. I got into a ridiculous argument with my landlord, which allowed me to be released from my current living situation. Meanwhile, Google Photos occasionally would show me pictures of myself living in Bali nine years ago. As I looked at these pictures, I realized I had changed so much since I left Bali for Singapore. I had forgotten the amazing person that I was. The universe seemed to be telling me that I should not waste more time and energy in Singapore, return to Bali, and to rediscover the person that I had forgotten I was. My journey was not finished.

Returning to Bali (2023)

I knew in my heart that I needed to return to Bali to be with the community that I had built up. I called Wira and let him know I was coming back to support Five Pillar again. It felt so good to have my best friend pick me up from the airport. Just seeing him reminded me why we are best friends. As best friends, we have always supported one another. We do not give up on ourselves, and we do not give up on each other.?

Wira's Impact on Me

For many years that I was living in Singapore, I knew it was a fast life for me. It made me fearful and anxious because the cost of living was dreadfully expensive and had been quickly rising after the pandemic had ended. Finding a job as a foreigner, in particular, is competitive in an already highly educated and skilled workforce. Even while employed, I always felt that I needed to demonstrate commitment through my overtime and through doing my very best work at all times. In the end, all the worry and anxiety to do my best did not help me. Today, I appreciate my friend Wira’s?faith, determination, and calmness, which has been remarkably consistent for the nine years I have known him. I continue to work on incorporating these qualities of my friend, Wira, into the person that I am today.?

In my previous article, I wrote that we need the help of others to undergo our own spiritual growth and self-actualization. We don’t know how to be anyone other than the person that we already are. Through Wira and the Balinese, I developed an ethical framework that incorporated the core values of harmonizing with nature, harmonizing with community, and harmonizing with one spirit. Although I am not Balinese, I have found a way to make the culture part of my own. Balinese philosophical values inform the way I teach leadership and what I value in the life that I aspire to live.

Love is the key that unlocks transformative relationships. Wira and I helped each other to grow. He gave me that Balinese cultural foundation. I provided him with my sense of community activism and leadership of which he took on with full force. Descartes wrote, “I think, therefore, I am.” I would revise the statement to be as follows:? “You and I love, therefore we are.” You play a role in helping me to discover me. I help you to discover you. That is spiritual growth. That is the power of love.