A Joyous Perspective on Service with Meaning: (Ding Dong) It's Your Calling Calling...

This week at The Friday Night Thought Tale Hour with the Henderson's, I want to share some thoughts I formed while watching a loved one run headlong into what I perceived to be off the side of a sheer cliff. Their goal was to respond to the need of a friend, but I feared for their health and safety much more than I cheered for their desire to help. 

After I let the air out of my big headed notion of knowing best for all, I began to see this person's actions as responding to a call of service. They were not looking for validation or personal reward, just finding a way to put their calling to good use. Maybe save someone from unneeded hurt, or even save a life. They've learned at a young age what it took me years to understand: What it is to truly respond in service with meaning.

Their calling was calling, and they would not let fear keep them from answering.

Why are you here on this earth? What is your purpose? What are you supposed to be doing with your life? These deep questions churn in all of us, and as we grow older, they continuously pop up as we come to another fork in the road.

My life’s journey has always been linked to helping other people; I just never saw it as serving them. Service meant something akin to sacrifice, and the greater the service, the greater the sacrifice. 

My journey to defining service with meaning vs. seeking validation: Saying yes to my calling.

It wasn’t always easy for me. I spent a great deal of my life questioning why I was here and what my life was all about. I had a tough upbringing, and it bled over into my early adulthood. 
It would have been easy to categorize myself as a victim, but I wanted to be different. I wanted people to hear my story and find inspiration, not the same old boring tale. Little did I know that being different meant discovering myself and not simply changing my circumstances. 

I was always a helpful person, but it was about seeking validation for what I did, to soothe some previous wound, not about the difference I could make in others’ lives when coming from a place of my calling.

I started learning about who I was and why I was behaving the way I did. I would often be so angry with myself for doing things for other people that I really did not match my true calling for service. I was seeking validation in these moments and wanting to be liked, to be told I was okay. I began to realize that I could say no and that I’d been saying no to the wrong person. I needed to start saying yes to my calling.

I also wanted to be sure that I wasn’t being mean and hurtful to others by saying no to some requests, and so I started asking them if I could, instead, help in another way. It's pretty cool how this honesty opens up people to discover other needs, and sometimes, even new things about their circumstance. 

My focus was now on serving them, not seeking validation for myself.

When you start giving from a place of curiosity and compassion instead of frustration, you can be present to people and give them respect. You are helping people gain insights into their own lives and the power they have to change or enhance them.

We can have a lot of self-doubts. They can come from many different places, but all have the common goal of preventing us from finding our calling. 

As a parent, friend, coach, partner, teacher or colleague, we can best serve people by reminding them of their potential, and bolstering their faith. Get people to be curious about their lives.  Help them to discover their own special and unique talents. Even when our own fears well up inside us, we can serve them by keeping them from choosing doubt of their calling. Instead, help them to focus on belief in finding the right path. When we believe in something, we show up differently in the world. Our lives have meaning.

Serving people is more interesting when we know who we are and what we are called to do. And if you are reading this and feeling like you haven't a clue, here's a special delivery from that little voice inside your head. SHHHHH....Listen.

Hey, Ding Dong, it's your Calling calling...

"Hey, it’s me. The one who keeps talking to you about that idea. That project. That possibility.
If I didn't think it was really for you, I wouldn’t have come knocking at the door of your mind. I wouldn’t have come into your dreams, into your imagination, into your heart. I wouldn’t have made it so compelling to think about me. I wouldn’t have planted in you the frustration with what is. I wouldn’t have planted in you the vision of what could be.

You keep saying you want more purpose, more adventure, and to have a greater impact. I’m offering you all of that, but you keep telling me I’m silly, unrealistic, too big, when here I am, ready to give you the greatest adventure of your life.

When I took this job, they told me much of it would be waiting. Waiting on you. I’m waiting for you to say yes. We can do this. Together, we can do this thing.

I need you. Your hands. Your heart. Your mind. Your circumstances. Your strength. Your weaknesses. Your wounds. Your wit. Your tale. But mostly, your faith.

I need you, just as you are."

So as you muse about your calling as I practice one of my callings, join me and the man in a toast to service, and that done with meaning. I made something I'm calling, "Service with a Smile". It's a little fruity, a little bananas, and super cool. Just like my calling....CHEERS, FRIENDS!

Joy's Service with a Smile Cocktail**

1/2 banana
3 oz strawberries
2 oz fruit punch
2 oz Bacardi light rum
1 oz banana liqueur
1 1/2 oz peach schnapps

Put all ingredients in a blender filled with crushed ice. Blend until smooth. Pour into a tall glass, and garnish with something that makes you smile. For me, it's a Pinwheel :).

**Always drink responsibly. Never drive after drinking.