Tag: Serving

Forget You

Published on by Kieran Johnson - The Generosity GuyLeave a comment

“The more one forgets himself — by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love — the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.” Viktor Frankl.

I hate serving. I hate the idea of being a servant. The word conjures images of people living as slaves and waiting on someone hand and foot because they have no other option. Servitude sucks.

The fact that we have an industry called, ‘the service industry’ irks me. I even used to work in it for a bit (I wasn’t great). To be clear, it’s not the industry that I don’t like, but the name. I bristle at the idea of being in someone else’s control, at their beck and call and having no agency of my own.

But this is not what service is, nor the service industry. One of the main differences is perspective, and shifting my thinking from service being slavery, to a picture of a person working for a greater cause. This creates a different experience. That is the only way that I can comfortably land in a place where I can positively talk about serving another person, as a way of forgetting myself and working towards something bigger. Putting someone else’s needs before mine. (They say that marriage and parenthood offer that sort of experience, but I have seen plenty of married people and parents live out of selfishness, and I have done that many times myself).

When Viktor Frankl talks about being more human when we forget ourselves, he is talking about the emotional experience. When we actively care for someone else, when we are seeking their benefit at the cost of our own, then we are having a greater human experience. Jesus talked about gaining your life only after losing it. There is something special that comes when we give of ourselves, when we sacrifice for others, when we serve. That is the beautiful gift that generosity brings. When we act in a way that puts others in the central part of our life, then we receive the benefit of the generous experience. You can’t stop it, it just happens naturally.

Real slavery does exist in our world, and it is evil. But the kind of service that Viktor Frankl refers to is not that. It is the opposite, it is the freedom to give of yourself to someone else and finding that you gain something amazing in the process.

Lack of Purpose is a First World Problem

Published on by Kieran Johnson - The Generosity GuyLeave a comment

50 years ago there was no such thing as finding your purpose. You found a job, you worked at that job and you provided for your family. If you were lucky enough you would stay at the company your entire career until you retired.

Now, every second person is having an existential crisis, asking themselves the question, ‘Is this what I really want to be doing?’ (I’m allowed to say this, I have been one of these people.)  

Lack of purpose is a first world problem. How lucky we are to have this issue. For millions, maybe billions, of people today, they don’t get to have that thought because their main priority is survival.

Still, I wish we could all have that existential crisis because it would allow us all to truly find something in life that truly connects us with our purpose. Although we are thinking about it all wrong. The questions I hear people asking are, ‘What do I want to do?’, or ‘What can I achieve?’, or ‘How do I find my particular thing?’.

What we really should be asking is ‘How can I help other people?’, or ‘Where can I serve today?’, or ‘What can I do that will bring the most value to others?’.

That will help you find your purpose, because your purpose is about other people.

Or, as Pablo Picasso puts it,

“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”