When did it become an inconvenience to care for others. When did we start putting I in front of we or you all the time.
Where There's Smoke did an episode called Everybody Can Be Great (Service) a couple of weeks ago. It started by bursting my bubble that a quote I hold near and dear was in fact not said by Ghandi (The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others) and concluded with Brett encouraging us to create a commitment to service in our lives and to bring others into that commitment as well.
It was a really timely episode for me as I listened to it the day after I had come up with this crazy idea for my birthday this year. It nudged me to invite a few others into the fold to participate and gave me the courage to share the story on my birthday in the hopes that it might inspire someone else to do something in service of another, even if it was just a kind word.
The struggle between serving yourself and serving others keeps coming up for me lately. I keep finding sources of conflict that exist because individuals are spending more time thinking about their own interests than considering where the other person is coming from. I'm not advocating for anyone to be a doormat. I just think that we're too quick with other emotions and not quick enough with empathy. I also find that empathy has a profound ability to turn our anger, frustration, sadness to curiosity and as a wise person once said at a conference I was at "it's hard to judge someone when you're being curious".
So, I'll leave the end of this blog with the same profound speech that WTS ended their episode on service with. Dr. Martin Luther King's humble and beautiful sermon on the greatness of serving others.
Being a Force for Good 