Are you serving?

Are you serving?

"You may be good, but what are you good for? You’ve got to be good for something. You’ve got to be about some project, some task that requires you to be humble and obedient to the universal principles of service."

-- Stephen R. Covey

"We had to learn ourselves, and furthermore we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life but instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life, daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for the individual."

-- Victor Frankl

"If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room."

-- Anita Roddick

Oh, those damn mosquitoes...grrr And yet what a great analogy of our life purpose and choices which, like the mosquito, often nags at us and keeps us up at night.

I don't know if I like all this talk of 'right' and 'good' but I do resonate with balance which involves giving and taking. Too often 'service' is a word confined to humans. We think we are the superior race here - the supreme ones around which all else revolves. But imagine life without the planet we live on to support us. Or how about an atmosphere dense with carbon and nitrogen instead of enriched with oxygen...whose winning now?

Service really means contributing to the balance. Whether it is planting more trees or removing rubbish from the environment or painting a mural or digging a new water catchment or helping an injured animal or taking responsibility for your pets and not letting them wander or sending a card to someone to let them know you care...there are many ways to be in service.

There is no debate that we are good intrinsically. What are you good for? is a threatening statement that comes loaded with guilt and accusation. This is not about personal worth. It is about being part of the balance of life and helping expand the experience of it while you are here. That is a joy-based state of being that resonates with our core essence.