UNDERSTAND THE MISSION: A SERVICE TO A DARKENING WORLD

 

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

A focused man on a mission/ Photo Courtesy / Thangpu Palte

Helping Someone Else is a Privilege

It has never been the absence of your own needs. The concept of a good neighbor has always been about responding to someone else’s needs. And it has nothing to do with readily available resources. Responding to another person’s needs has always been about sacrifice. It is about acknowledging that yes, I have my own needs. However, in this moment. I am needed someone where. A need has risen in my own community and my help is needed. You understand that you are in the middle of my own needs. But How should I respond? Do I respond by telling the person requesting for my help with my own needs or do I forget for a moment that I have got needs and listen to what is being said? In moments like these. You always have a choice to either answer the call with humility or project your own selfishness. But understand this. Being called upon to help someone is a privilege. It is not always you are responding to other people’s needs.

In most occasions, you are usually drowned in your own needs and wants. So being called upon to help works for your own good. It helps you determine how far you have travelled. Whether you are a good listener or not. Being called upon to be a neighbor. Tells you whether you are consumed in your own selfishness or not. Putting your needs aside and being in a position to think about another person is a measure of compassion. Are you able for a moment, to snap out of your familiar settings and put yourself in the shoes of another person? Are you capable of helping without reservations? Are you available when a distress call is put out? what about your swiftness when such matters come up? Do you lead from the front or you are the last person to arrive? Just thing about all these questions. And ascertain whether you are a good neighbor.

And as you think, I would like to make it very clear. That the environments we all come from are not good. Our societies are poisoned. They have a very toxic doctrine. A doctrine, which misleads more than leads. There is a lot of meanness going on. Most people have been numbed into accepting selfishness. And that self-centeredness is manifesting in various levels of corruptions in own societies. These days, some people have become so shameless that they can easily convert public resources into individual properties. In fact, someone will have no problem taking everything on the table when the line is still long. Yet, someone in his or her own right mind thinks that taking everything is a wise idea. The environment is selling a dangerous doctrine. One that is robbing children their purity.

Don’t Imitate Your Environment

A visionary leader communicating the overall business mission / Photo / Mikhail Nilov

But don’t get used to justifications you see around you. Don’t get used to excuses every other person is giving. The mere fact that we live in a misleading world does not mean we imitate our environment. Don’t allow your surroundings to shape your behavior. Grow up a little bit. And be yourself. As yourself, you have common sense. Exercise it. The mere fact that everyone around is behaving like his or her environment does not necessarily mean you act the same way. Be the adult in the environment. If societies are struggling with their senses. Be the light in that darkness. See what is supposed to be seen. See the needs of other people. See the child in need. See the mother without a roof. See the young couple struggling. And don’t just see for the sake of seeing.

See these needs with the right lens. Respond with compassion. Think of what you would like to be done to you. If it were you in the position of a suffering child. Give the child water. Give him food. Welcome the child in your own home. Provide relief for those various needs. Provide relief not because you have all the answers. But respond because you have deliberately made yourself available. Making yourself available means listening well. It means you live in the moment and you are sensitive to different things that happen around you. This means, when a distress call comes, you open your ears. You listen to understand what the other person is saying. And get this very clearly. When a person calls you and inquires whether you can step in areas where he or she is missing something. it does not mean that person is minimizing the presence of your own needs.

The person called with full knowledge. He or she knows you got your own problems. Your needs could even be more demanding than the request being made. However, having your own needs should never be an excuse. Further, having your own needs should not inform how you behave. Don’t respond to a need by raising your own needs. People know you got responsibility. However, the request was, ‘could you be a neighbor,’ in that person’s moment of need. The request is to see the emergency in another person’s desire for help. That has always been the mission. To raise to the occasion without excuses. To answer a request without murmuring. To forget your needs just for a moment and be a good neighbor. One that listens and understands the mission. A neighbor that is not under the influence of selfishness.

Serve Others

A diligent leader giving service to the world / Photo / The Lazy Artist Gallery

We don’t live in the best times. However, that does not mean we miss the mark. Don’t travel too far with modern society. Let society be society. But you, be the human in society. Don’t become deaf because all your needs have been satisfied. Don’t become blind because you stomach is full. Don’t become insensitively because that need has nothing to do with you. Be the human in an increasingly darkening world.

Don’t lose the qualities of a good neighbor. A good neighbor lays down his or her own needs for the sake of the other. A good neighbor serves other people. And that does not mean you got nothing to do.  Don’t succumb to the lies flying around you. Modern society still needs a good neighbor. Don’t be misguided by the rottenness you see on television or social media. As long as, you are a normal human being. The need for the other will not end. Connect the correlation and show up when needed.