The Paceline

Any definition of a successful life must include service to others.  – George H. W. Bush

Two years ago the question was Who Ya Gonna Serve? Now I ask why.

At the end of the party tonight, young Eric asked me about how to become more involved in his community. Eric is an articulate, engaging engineer whose life in a thriving part of Boston is consumed by lots of work and a few work outs.

I eagerly encouraged him to find a local nonprofit and volunteer. And, as any doting father might, I reminded him of the bonus that a remarkable number of amazing, single women work at nonprofits. My motives were twofold: to help Eric serve his community; and to encourage him to find a cool woman to add a little balance to life – and maybe a life partner.

Eric knew the answer (at least my first one) before he asked the question. But he was stumped on what nonprofit to choose. I pressed him to define his passion – or at least intrigued concern – for a problem facing his community. To define his “why” in order to determine his “who” to serve.

My trusty friend, Jim Denison, raised the question of why when he wrote about service a couple of weeks ago. Without real honesty about the why (and who) we serve, he said we risk at least three pitfalls: 

1. When we serve to impress others with our service – we serve ourselves.
2. When praised for our service, there is a temptation to deflect that praise with humility in order to impress others with our humility thus – we serve ourselves.
3. When we serve others to advance ourselves (or find a cute girlfriend), our service has a hollow core, that is – we serve ourselves.

Getting to why is vital. Making a list of who needs help can be daunting. There are soooo many needs in the world, the problems are overwhelming.

The answer preexists.  It is the question that must be discovered.  – Jonas Salk

To discover your why, list every problem that comes to mind. Build a mind map. Or borrow the one I built in 2006. Then refine those problems until you find a few that make your blood pump just a little faster.

When you understand what’s on your path from intrigued concern to passion, and where you sit on that path, you can define your why, and from there determine your who.

You may even perform a ‘root-cause analysis” (engineer speak) to find the problem behind the problems – the lowest common denominator of misery, failure, or fallen man depending upon your belief system.

You may serve many or just a few. Whatever you choose, you will make a difference.

To the world, you may just be one person;  but to one person, you may be the world.  – Josephine Billings