Episode Six

Giving service is my highest priority. This is an easy one for me. In fact, what I’ve found over the past few years is that I am not motivated by self-service at all. Or at least that was how I interpreted the idea of service. I cannot make myself take care of myself for me, but I will do it if it helps me take care of my kids or my husband or some other responsibility I’ve taken on. Service to others has been my highest priority…but is this what the quote is saying? Certainly, it doesn't mean being a slave to service for no reason.

By now you may have figured out that everything is a mind game of perception for me, but really listening to each phrase with detailed precision is something I've always done. Giving service is a concept that infers others, does it not? Somehow, though, this has allowed me to short change all of my dreams big and small in favor of doing for others. Is service merely “doing for others”? Indeed by definition, it is, but in idiom it means to be helpful, and that is probably how I’ve thought about it most.

Lately, I have come to realize though that being helpful is tricky because what is best for almost anyone is for one to help oneself. That seems to be the only way help sticks for me. It turns out that being helpful serves my own sense of well-being almost more than any tangible outcome of the service has been. Helping others dissolves the illusion of separation, and reinforces my connection to everyone else, the greater self.

Even still, some of my help over the years has turned out to be a big mistake, ur, a stepping stone on the pathway. So as a gift it is negligible to any one but myself unless with a right mind I realized that service was more about creating an environment for others to help themselves. Giving this kind of service to others, to humanity in general, is my highest priority because through this giving of myself then I help myself on the pathway from one stepping stone to the next. Grin