By Jack Dolbey
Professional Mentor

If someone inspires me, I’ll make an attempt to reach out to them.

I’ve recently been going back and forth to Jersey in the Channel Islands to work with a family based there. One afternoon earlier this year, I stumbled upon an article in the Jersey Evening Post written by Simon Boas, an island local, on his terminal cancer diagnosis and musings around death. It’s beautifully written and incredibly moving, and includes the haunting line “the prognosis is not quite “don’t buy any green bananas”, but it’s pretty close to “don’t start any long books” that has seen his story picked up by mainstream media across the UK. A lot of what he writes concerns that of character, and immediately recognising the link with Oppidan’s ethos, I decided to contact Simon.

I asked Simon if he wouldn’t mind sharing his three most important lessons on character and this was his response:

1. Resilience

I think especially young people today are not geared up for failure, and it can discourage them permanently. But to fail – even to f#ck up royally! – is a part of the learning process, and actually one of the pathways to success. I dropped out of Oxford without finishing my degree, for example, but if I hadn’t done so I might not have ended up as an aid-worker. It’s such a key element of everyday life – being able to pick yourself up, dust yourself down, if necessary forgive yourself and make amends.

2. Comparing yourself downwards

Humans are hardwired to ‘keep up with the Joneses’, and probably have done so since the Joneses had a nicer cave. But I see so often how it makes people unhappy, whether that’s through envying those in the news with fame and fortune or just believing the curated nonsense on social media where your friend appears to be having a better holiday. In rich old Jersey I see millionaires unhappy that someone has a better boat! I’ve been so lucky in being able to experience the worst of life – slums in Sierra Leone, displaced people in war zones, needle exchanges in Glasgow – that makes it quite easy for me when I’m tempted to moan about something to just take a step back and think how lucky I am.

3. Kindness

People bang on about it, and maybe it’s hard to make it relevant for young people. But it’s a SUPERPOWER. And the way I would present it is actually to focus on the benefits to the person doing it. Now, I have tried every drug under the sun, and revelled in many hedonistic pleasures, but NOTHING comes close to how good you feel from doing one small thing for another person. It is easy in fact to get high off other people. Not just one’s friends and loved-ones, and not just the people one shares activities or interests with. You can walk around a town or a shop or a hospital getting high off perfect strangers by just being open and friendly. Realising this really changed my life, and it has also been so wonderful in the run-up to my death.

Simply smiling warmly at strangers – perhaps even offering a kind word, or helping a young mum put her pushchair in the car – has an enormously powerful effect. First it puts them in a good mood, and they are then more likely to do the same to others. Then it helps you, and you’ll find that your spirits are genuinely lifted through the rest of your day. And finally it helps everyone, because society is so much better when we trust those around us.”