At 5:45 p.m. today, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a.k.a. Pope Francis, is scheduled to arrive in the Philippines from his four-day Apostolic Visit in Sri Lanka. As he journeys to our side of the continent, why don’t you take a moment to read about what the man of God Himself has taught billions of people by example.

1. Be grateful for the work that you have.
Sure, your job isn’t as fulfilling as you want it to be, and yes, it can sometimes be infuriating to work such long hours, but it’s also giving you plenty of real-life experiences and learning opportunities.

At age 13, Pope Francis already knew the meaning of hard work. During the summer, he would clean the accounting firm where his father worked even though he didn’t exactly like the idea. In college, he also spent some time working at a laboratory of chemical composition analysis. According to Our Pope, Pope Francis considered his time working there as one of the best things he did in his life.

2. Live simply.
If you look at Pope Francis’s lodging at the Vatican, you’d see that he stays in a room with just enough furniture to meet his exact needs. Aside from a bed, a bench, and cabinets and credenzas for his personal belongings, his room is bare and surrounded with plain, white walls. When he was Buenos Aires’ archbishop, Pope Francis also led a similar lifestyle, choosing to live in a small apartment and foregoing a chauffeured limousine for public transportation.

3. Don’t take yourself too seriously.
Even His Holiness has a sense of humor. He’s not too stuffy not to laugh at himself when his shoulder cape gets blown on his face while he’s giving speeches or not to wear loom bands given to him by one of the 500 children he hosted from poor neighborhoods in Rome and Naples.

PHOTO: Our Pope