Perspectives That Serve # 21 - Serving

From the blog name you can tell this is the signature perspective on this site. It is the view point that runs through everything else I talk about. It ties or binds all the other principles together. I also believe that if you internalize this perspective or attitude well, it will naturally lead you into all the others.

Zig Ziglar said it well, “You can get everything in life you want, if you help enough other people get what they want”. Reciprocity is built into the fabric of life. When we go out and try to take what we want without thinking of others, we always end up hurting ourselves. Some of us don’t believe this and end up paying the consequences of a terribly miserable life. Most of us sort of understand it, and pay lip service to the idea or live with this attitude part of the time. Then we go on to live very mediocre lives. A few of us get it, build our entire life and career around it, and go on to greatness.

Jesus taught that a heart for service was the path to greatness. A desire to genuinely help people is what will catapult your to the top of your profession whether that be sales or whatever. It will also weave maximum joy and fun into your life and work.

This doesn’t mean that we don’t take time off and restore. The need for appropriate self care and a day of restoration is also built into the fabric of life. To embrace serving others and ignore restoration and self care is a quick path to burn out. In my experience as a manager, women struggle with this more than men. They often work a full-time job during the day and then try to be a full-time stay at home mom at nights and on week ends. This just ends up sucking the life right out of them.

So the service perspective always must include time for genuine self-care and self-love. The other centered life focuses beyond yourself but it includes yourself. The Bible tells us to love our neighbor as ourself. Self love and serving others are complimentary concepts not conflicting concepts. On any given day, there may appear to be a conflict, but the perfect resolution always exists if we look for it. This doesn't mean that everyone will always be pleased with us. Often a life of service involes telling someone no or not now. Jesus himself didn't heal everyone, and in at least in one case he put it off until way it appeared to late. A man died and a family was disappointed. But Jesus timing was always perfect.