Occasionally when the fancy comes upon me; I find myself looking for conversations with others.
The reasons vary but it stems from a general curiosity about how others think, feel and act.
I am curious as to how and why they make certain choices and what their motivations are or were; depending entirely on if the discussion is centered around the moment or around events gone past.
Which brings me to today's topic of discussion. Service to one and all.
What is service and what does it mean or represent? And before you start groaning inwardly and proceed to consign this conversation to the waste bin of irrelevance... I would have my say.
Service is rendering an action with a desired purpose to someone who either requests it or is in need of it. While this is open to broad interpretation the summary is basically about doing something useful for someone ( could be self directed or outwardly directed)
Typically service makes us truly useful and in the long run determines if we have perceived value to ourselves and to others. This could be be a good thing or a bad thing depending on what your motives are and how others perceive you after the act. With service you can position yourself as a go to person and gradually build a competence and reputation defined by the history of services rendered in the past.
The other alternative is that you could be perceived as a person who never says no to any request and therefore will become everyone's go to source; a truly tiring dilemma.
Now while we should look at all sides of this dilemma; let us not forget that we each have agendas of our own. Typically most people preform an act of service with some sort of motive in mind.
It could be a long term benefit, a strategic or tactical action, a key requirement, a matter of life or death and so many other possible scenarios.
There is however a side to service that seems too noble or pure but that nonetheless exists. When we have learnt to look beyond ourselves and the benefits for just ourselves or those of interest to us; then we may enter into a better understanding of a new kind of service. That which treats everyone as a potential beneficiary of the service mechanism.
The human nature is a complex thing made more complicated by our dynamic environment, cultures and social mores. The law of self preservation as well as other succinct and embedded principles have turned us into a caricature of our true natures. Even nature has knowledge of these systems of service and enlists them to create the various cycles that govern the balance of life.
If nature understands and utilizes service in its truest form; devoid of sentiment then why can we not as superior and gifted creatures do much more?
Should there exist a motive that determines who and what we serve? The greater good? The greater benefit for self, the greater reward etc
Service to one and all should be the common ethos. One day we will require such selflessness of each other and when we can no longer give it then what have we become?
