To Serve

To Serve:

This week I was listening to an audio book by Tom Hopkins and he said, “The benefits of my product or service is my chosen path to serve my fellow man.”

    What really struck me about this is, regardless of our profession we can all get caught up in “Winning” “Being Right” “Looking Good” “Maintaining Stature” and we forget the honor it is to truly SERVE others.

   As a college student, if you asked me what I want to DO with my life I’d list you all of my professional goals ranging from being a Pediatrician, physical therapist, or chiropractor.  If you then asked me WHY I wanted any of those professions, the root answer would have been “I just want to HELP PEOPLE.”

    Do we need some awe renowned profession in order to SERVE, to HELP, to make another person’s life better?  Can we not but do that anywhere?  Often when we feel burn out, or do the same job for so long, we start to think…”is this it?  Is this all my life has succumbed to?”

    One of the greatest internal goals in life is to be of VALUE, to MATTER, to believe “Oh yeah, that’s why I’m here.”  What if we stopped trying to GET from our clients or employer, our spouse or kids, our community or government? And what if we chose to ask “How can I SERVE”, “what can I GIVE”, or “What’s my value HERE”? Couldn’t we find fulfillment anywhere?

    In life, for me it looks like the “selling profession”.  I’m not the only one who does what I do. The product is the same from me as others, the pay is the same for me as others, and our clientele is the same too.  So…the question comes “WHY ME”. Why should you buy from me, why should you hire me, why should you choose to be in a relationship with me rather than ANYONE else?”

   Because… I am here to SERVE.  To serve YOU as a client. Because I am here to serve YOU as a potential employer, because I am here to serve YOU as a spouse.  And that SERVICE is expressed in how I do EVERYTHING.

   I wake up earlier and work out to be in the best mental and physical condition to have the energy and focus to SERVE.  I read, study, practice and prepare because I CARE and I WANT that opportunity to serve.  I choose my LIFE the way it is in order to SERVE YOU BETTER.

   What if that’s what our life looked like?

   When I was in college and if someone asked me, “Well, John why do you want to help people?” I’d have the same answer as you. “Because it makes me happy”.
 It makes me happy to make other peoples lives easy, it makes me happy to see someone experience being valued and respected, it makes me happy to make other people happy.

   But can this be maintained?

   The challenge comes when we confuse happiness with “feeling good”, when we confuse happiness with “winning”, when we confuse happiness with achieving other people’s “admiration”.  Because our happiness lies in circumstances.

   So the question remains, can happiness be maintained?  The real question is can we remind ourselves what really makes us happy?

   For me in my job, in my family, with my communities it looks like the same. It is to SERVE. To serve is to be of value, to be of value is to make a difference, to make a difference is to matter, to matter is to be reminded “Oh yeah, that’s why I’m here.” To know, to know, to KNOW you have a place in this world, to believe that you were meant for something, to realize that the world around you wouldn’t be the same with out YOU…now that is something we can do every day, all day, and when the fatigue sets we can finally sleep with that REAL experience of purpose and can wake with the excitement to do it AGAIN!