Serve Others

Why We Should Thrive

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Health, Leadership, Relationships, Success

A tree like all things in nature tries to thrive. It does so naturally, it is it’s normal state of being. In thriving it roots itself to the ground, it fights against gravity and grows towards the light, and it produces fruit to serve those around them.

We are not much different. Our natural state of being is to try and thrive, but often our past experiences and our understanding of them shape our mind in ways that make us think small and live small. To thrive seems scary, it seems beyond our capabilities or too dangerous to attempt. It is as if we don’t want to sail the sea because we think we might fall off the horizon.

As scary as it might be to try and thrive, a life wasted living small would be a regret worse than thriving and failing along the way.

My past traumas make me want to live small. My unconscious beliefs formed like mental scares from my past experiences feel like an invisible force stopping me from doing what I know will help me thrive. It takes courage to push through these mental barriers. I plan to try and be brave. I will fail along the way, but no mountain can be climbed sitting in a chair.

Remember, you are not alone. Like trees whose roots link with other trees to share resources and hold each other against strong winds, you have a community to lean on, so do. When we serve each other we all thrive together. There is no me without you. We all exist interconnected. We walk our own paths but we do so beside others walking their own paths.

When we thrive we can better serve others. When we serve others we thrive more ourselves. Take your first step. I am taking mine.

Thrive to Serve, Serve to Thrive

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Health, Relationships, Success

When being asked what the meaning of life is, I have a tendency to say 42 with my tongue firmly in my cheek. However, it is something I think about quite a lot, and currently, I have settled on the meaning of life to be to thrive and help others to thrive.

I could go into the many reasons for this, including the evolution of our socially focused species and the effects of feel good hormones when we do good for others, but essential if we thrive we are more able to help others, to serve them. Also, if we focus on serving others, our own well-being is improved, helping us to thrive. And on it goes.

I do not mean to be someone else’s servant, I mean to have the mindset to help others, to serve what they need to be happy and successful. Conversely, we also need to be open to allowing others to help us. Allowing this is a gift to the person helping us because it allows them to reap the rewards that come from helping other people.

This cycle goes on and on and can spread through the world, causing us all to thrive together. So, if we work on thriving in mind, body, and chi, we can serve others when they need us to, and in serving others, we thrive even more.

To Serve First Thrive

Happiness, Health, Relationships, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

Put on your oxygen mask first is the instruction to parents when being given a safety briefing on a plane before the flight begins. The reason is that if you are unconscious, you can not help your child.

Equally, in day to day life, if you spend your time helping others and not looking after yourself, then you will become depleted, and your metaphorical cup will be empty. If you fill up your cup, then you have more to give.

In order to serve, you must first thrive yourself. To give you must first have plenty. This applies to your health, both mental and physical. To help others, you need to thrive so that the energy you give to others leaves you with energy to take care of yourself, too.

You also see the world and other people through the prism of yourself. You see things as you are, not how they are.

Serving Others Better

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Relationships, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

One of the principles I try to live by is ‘own your journey’ and another is ‘serve others,’ and to me these are very much linked. If we have our own issues with our health, relationships, work, etc that we leave unresolved, because we don’t want to deal with them, we are not in a good position to serve others. Therefore, in order to serve others well we need to make sure we are in a good place.

The way we make sure we are in a good place is to take ownership of our problems and find solutions for them. Anyone who has reached advanced stages of a spiritual practice will be effective in serving others, because they have put in the work of resoling their problems. Whether you are spiritual or not, you still have to do the work.

Imagine having such peace of mind and clarity that you help to solve the problems of others effectively. If more people took ownership of their lives the world would be a better place. Let’s do the work and make it better together.

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

One of my driver’s in life is to serve others. Not because it sounds good or that I intend to benefit from it, it is because serving others is something my parents modelled for me and it is now part of who I am.

I also feel that if we all spent some of our time serving others then the self interest, which is so pervasive in modern culture, will be reduced and society as a whole will be better off. It is also the right thing to do.

Service towards others makes us humble and helps us appreciate the help that others give to us. Also, we cannot be effective in life without working with other people. We need mentors and colleagues, friends and family, leaders to follow and those who we lead.

If we all look after the person the right of us and to the left of us we can do amazing things. There is a saying I have heard, but I am unsure on its origins.

If you want to go quickly go alone. If you want to go far go together.

How We Serve Each Other

Happiness, Leadership, Relationships, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

We can see colour because the fruits, berries and vegetables that we evolved to eat are colourful. The fruits, berries and vegetables are colourful because we, and other animals, see in colour. All things exist in this inter-related way.

When we focus on our individual dramas and successes we forget that we only exist because everything else exists, that we are dependent on each other. Whatever position we hold in the company we work for, without every other person who works there, from the top to the bottom, we would not have a company to work for. The same could be said of our society, culture and human race.

This line of thinking could extend out to include everything in the universe, but for practical purposes it helps to think on a human level. In short, we have much to be grateful for and much work to do, as everyone else needs us as much as we need them. The challenge we have is to figure out what our part to play actually is. To have a purpose in life is to know where you fit and how you can be the best you that you can. This is how we serve each other.