Think Service

How Do You Serve?

Service is the direct path to a meaningful Life.

— Jay Shetty

Or maybe I should start by asking, do you serve?

I know we don't like to hear the word, because of its similitude or relationship with servant or being subservient, but the truth is this, a life that isn't serving is a life that is being wasted; a life that is not useful. If you aren't in one way or another, serving something, or expansively using your life for a cause, then it's as good as you're not even here.

So I ask the first and simple question again; do you serve?

Service is the essence of life, and it is extremely key that a life serves a purpose, and Jay Shetty expressed this extensively in his book, Think Like a Monk. Service is the essence of life because every life form that thrives serves a purpose, and it is in serving a purpose that that life form makes an impact.

Service goes beyond just exchange of value. It speaks also to giving of value even where the value won't come back to you. Service is letting yourself be spent even when there's no guarantee that what is spent will be replenished. Service is giving where you don't ever plan to receive. It is sowing where you don't even plan to reap. It is planting trees under whose shade you don't plan to sit.

Do you serve?

Do you serve or are you just one who always think in terms of give and take? That is good too, but every life form that makes true impact must move beyond transactional into becoming transformational. If you want to make any real impact, you have to start thinking more in terms of giving, neverminding whether you even receive back or not.

Someone I shared this line of thought with said, "The truth is you cannot be transformational if you're not first transactional," and I completely disagreed. You don't have to gather first before you can live an abundant life. You don't have to gather before you can scatter abroad. If you live a life of service, a life that gives and serves a purpose, it will come back to you in abundance. According to Jay Shetty, "you don't first have to have (in abundance) to give."

If you don't start with what is in your hands already, and you're waiting to have a 'reasonable amount' of value first before you are able to give, then you'll simply be a capped up pond, shallow, never flowing, never conquering mountains, simply concealed and contained in yourself. Lacking abundance.

The sun serves with what it has inherently. Trees serve with their fruits, leaves, branches, and their shades, regardless of how big or how small. They serve with that which they already have, because they understand that there's nothing they have that has not been given to them. There's nothing they have that is meant to be hoarded.

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How do you serve? Without cheer? You never want to serve? You always want something in return? You think service is beneath you? Then how do you intend to make impact? For impact is not about giving yourself to the extent to which you get. It is about giving irrespective of that which comes back to you.

How do you maintain a credit balance in form of a standing legacy that can be drawn from and called upon even after you're gone if all that you give must be equal to all that you receive?

How do you make a mark if all that your life stands for is transactional? How do you make an impact, if the pact you have with everyone is to give so you can receive?

Look around you, look at the truly grate people. The Nelson Mandelas of our generation. The Bill Gates. The truly rich. The Elon Musks and Steve Jobs. They didn't become great because they were looking for what to get from life. They became beacons for a better world because of what they sort to give to life.

Think service. Not in terms of what to get, but in terms of what to give. In terms of how to serve. In terms of the purpose for which you want your life to serve. And remember, you do not have to have it all to give. You do not have to be at your lowest to serve. You simply need to want to give yourself.

True, you cannot give what you do not have, but it is also true, that no servant was left without a coin. Even the laziest of them all.

What is in your hands right now? How are you using that which you have been given to serve? How will you use that which you have been given to serve?

Your attitude and answer to these questions will determine whether you lead a life of fulfilment, or a life that means nothing more than a speck of dust in the end.

To your growth,

Abiola Okunsanya,

Handzinspired. ✨