What does it mean to be of service?
I have always thought of service as something one does for others, an action extended outwards—like volunteering for a non-profit or enlisting in the military. In my view there was always a selflessness to it as well. But I’ll be honest—in this light service didn’t appeal to me, and I felt ashamed of it. Shouldn’t I want to serve and be selfless? Am I selfish for not?
Then, out of the blue, my whole perspective on service shifted this year—one that has brought with it a sense of peace, calm, and purpose.
For most of my life I have felt the need to lead and make decisions. I have led teams, I’ve led businesses, and I was often the coordinator in friend groups. If I was going on a hike with friends I would somehow always end up at the front of the line! After years of this, it became exhausting. As I wound down my last business at the end of 2023, Sagra, I noticed that for the first time my natural inclination to lead also began to unwind. I found myself noticing what would happen if I didn’t force a direction. I would sit down to make music, and rather than force myself to make a certain type of song, I would simply see what music came out over the next hour. Rather than deciding I needed to write this article in a given week, I noticed when inspiration came to me and then I wrote. I was discovering for the first time that beautiful things can and do happen when I hold myself back long enough to allow something or someone else to take the lead.
And yet, a part of me still felt torn between the desire to lead and the desire to slow down, between being in action and just being. I was surprised when the idea of service started to reconcile these opposing forces for me. The word service implies a relationship between two things—the thing doing the serving and the thing being served. This simple observation set off a chain of insights for me. I began to ask myself what I was taking an action in service of.
I began to see that I felt unsatisfied, like I was reaching for an elusive goal, whenever I didn’t know what I was in service of.
I began to wonder how I could take aligned actions. It felt like I had finally reached a point in my path where being and doing didn’t feel like a fork in the road—I could experience both at the same time.
As I have written about before, I turn to my inner voice for guidance. I now saw that this inner voice could be what I was acting in service of. I began to envision the doing part of me as scaffolding—it is there to hold up and enable something to be built, but the scaffolding isn’t the building itself. When I feel the compulsion to lead and figure things out, that is the scaffolding thinking it’s the building. There is a lot of confusion that comes with that, a lot of worrying whether I am headed in the right direction, and wondering what’s the purpose of it all.
Once I found my inner doing part’s home as scaffolding for my inner voice’s intuition and wisdom, I felt a profound sense of alignment—and service was the word that tied it all together. I know this can sound philosophical, so how does this translate into my day-to-day life?
I now start each morning with a simple question—how can I best serve love today (a slight twist on Elizabeth Gilbert’s Letters From Love practice)?
I then listen to my inner voice for guidance. Sometimes it tells me to support another person, sometimes it tells me of a project to work on, sometimes it tells me to just care for myself and rest, but most importantly it tells me how to be while doing. It shows me how to support others in a way that cares for them. It shows me how to work on a project in a patient, creative, and self-expressed way. What has emerged from this simple practice has been beyond my wildest dreams. I’ve written articles I love, made music I find deeply moving, deepened relationships, and started new professional projects with people that inspire me.
Thank you, Service, for all you’ve opened my eyes to.
In Practice:
What does being of service mean to you? What connotations does it carry for you? How might you create your own definition of service, and how might that help you and others in your life?
For Further Reading:
The Surrender Experiment, by Michael A. Singer
Elizabeth Gilbert’s post in which she explores the idea of service
