Questions on service...loooonnnggg post

What’s really reasonable?

Just curious. It seems like life is all about finding this out, to me. We are supposed to love one another, but we’re not supposed to be naïve and trust everyone. We’re supposed to not judge, but we’re supposed to have righteous judgment. We’re supposed to be our best selves-but is that ever a set thing? Isn’t it always changing? And we’re supposed to serve. Like crazy. Right? But this seems impossible.

I had a discussion a while ago with a friend who doesn’t believe in the same things I do, almost about…the point of life. In an indirect way. Perhaps OUR point in life. Their basic idea was that there’s nothing wrong with having your best interests at heart. This doesn’t sound so bad…

…but it just kind of doesn’t fit to me. It’s like when somebody’s just said something you know isn’t true, you just can’t remember why. Kind of like that.

I told them I feel like the ultimate point for us is to lose ourselves in service to others. But as someone who used to be Mormon and isn’t anymore, they didn’t seem to really accept or respect this answer.

Maybe they’re partly right. Because I preach that that’s what I think is most important, and that the only way to be truly happy is in service to others. Is in living FOR others. But do I do that? No. I have my list of excuses: I’m shy, I’m sensitive, I feel more comfortable keeping to myself than going out and searching for things I can do for others. I feel like I’d feel stupid doing that-even at 21, I’m still no good at making friends. (Don’t worry, I’m friendLY, I just consider actual friends hard to come by.)

So I’m selfish. Most of the things I do in the day, I do for me. I get on facebook because it’s entertaining. I eat because I’m hungry or because something looks tasty. I went to school because I had to. Same with getting dressed/ready for the day. Where is the service in that?

CAN you even serve, if you’re shy? I’m not shy the way I once was-but lots of people still intimidate me, I still prefer not to try to hold a conversation with them. This is such a discouraging thought: unless you’re outgoing, you can’t serve. But it does seem a lot harder to me, from an introvert’s perspective.

I had a Psychology class called ‘Personality,’ and a teacher I really loved. He was probably one of my favorite teachers in my whole college career (so far). He was so good at challenging the normal way of thinking, even the normal teacher’s perspective. He made us question everything. One thing I really liked was when he pointed out things that were very American, a very American, western thing. (He grew up in America but had lived and traveled all over before deciding to teach at BYU-Idaho, of all places.)

One thing that he pointed out was very American was the constant push about satisfying ourselves. It’s all about the individual. And it’s all about being comfortable as things are, instead of trying to change for the better. This rang true to me: when, as a teenager, a friend would tell me something negative about themselves, my automatic response was to disagree. Was this true? Not always-sometimes, they were actually right with what they were criticizing. But did I encourage them to fix the behavior that needed fixing? No. Better to ignore the evidence and give temporary justification, right? Hm.

It seemed so true to me that Americans are all about satisfying the self. Everything seems to be working toward this: there are advertisements saying things like ‘Because you’re worth it’ or ‘Go ahead, indulge’ or whatever the case may be. There are self-help books all over the place, all about making you feel good about yourself.

But aren’t we missing a blaring, obvious truth in all this searching for the ‘best life’? If all we’re doing is focusing on what we’re unhappy about in our lives, and what we want to fix to make ourselves better…it’s still all about us. Even any service we do, with encouragement from those ‘self-help’ books, is done with the wrong motives. It’s done for us. For what it will do for us.

I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all.

My psychology teacher talked about how when he lived with bushmen in Africa, how their society was so completely different. They still had natural man tendencies I’m sure-they still thought of themselves. But they ignored it: their society flourished on the contribution of every member, for every member. Does that make sense? So an elderly widow never had to worry about if she’d have enough to eat-she was a member of their society, and so she was fed. Of course. Naturally.

This is beautiful. This feels more right.

I wish I could be this way. Throw out what people say about what I ‘deserve’: lots of people don’t get what they deserve, and lots of people don’t deserve what they get. I don’t want to even care. I want to make a difference in others’ lives, not because of how it will make me feel but because it’s right. And because they may need it.

I guess I just worry: is this reasonable? I hope so. I live so much for myself, that I think my soul is sick of it. Just as our souls need spiritual nourishment from doing things like reading scriptures, saying prayers, going to church, perhaps they need nourishment from serving. Faith without works is dead, after all (James 2:20).

The best way I can mesh this ideal with reality is kind of the psychologist Alfred Adler’s idea. The best life we can live is one devoted to others, and yet we do take care of our own needs. But we don’t take care of our needs just because ‘We’ve earned it;’ we take care of them so that we can serve better.

Example: A mother of six children probably has very little time to herself or for herself, all day long. So let’s say her husband, when he gets home from work, takes over with the cooking and watching the children, and she takes a bath and reads a book for an hour. Every day.

Does she do this just because she deserves it? With this idea, no: she does it because she’ll go insane if she doesn’t take a break. Will she be a good mom as an insane person? Will she make her children as happy if she’s just resenting their presence by the end of the day? How about her husband: will she be able to give him what he needs in the relationship, if all she’s been doing is giving all day? No. So she takes care of that need of hers, and then when it’s done she’s refreshed and ready to fulfill her duties better than she could have before.

See?

That’s what I want. That’s what seems ideal…with just a little thing nagging at me.

I don’t think people are selfish who work hard and ‘take breaks,’ really just for themselves. I don’t look down my nose at those who like to go out to eat, who pursue hobbies because they enjoy them. Indeed, aren’t we encouraged to develop our talents? …but then again we’re supposed to consecrate of our time and talents in the service of God, anyway…What about vacations? I don’t think or feel vacations are wrong or bad, and indeed church leaders have encouraged families to take vacations together to make memories.

THIS is it. THIS is where it doesn’t mesh, and I’m still trying to figure out how to make it mesh better. I don’t like having a ‘church’ idea and a ‘real world’ idea, separate. Because if what we learn in church isn’t applicable to our lives, it’d be pointless.

Maybe…hm. Maybe the point isn’t necessarily for us to be serving every minute of the day. That isn’t even possible for a lot of us (students, for example). Maybe the point is that opportunities WILL be presented to us, and when they are we need to take advantage of them. And if we don’t see opportunities, we should go find them. But we don’t need to every moment of the day, or even until we collapse. And I’m not sure how to tell if we’ve searched enough, but maybe that’s kind of the same as the question “Have you done your best?” Sometimes it’s hard to tell, but I’ve heard if you don’t know just think how much effort you put into it, or how much time you spent on it. If nothing else, this is a way to measure effort. Time spent.

Does that make sense? I hope so. I guess I’ve just given this a lot of thought, lately: how should I be spending my days? Since time is precious.