On service

As I type, it is five in the morning on a Sunday. I am on a unit startup in Baton Rouge, and we have a little bit of downtime as we wait for some furnaces to do their “thang.” Once you get used to it, the night shift is great – the pace slows down, and while you sit in dimly lit rooms staring at graphs with strangers who ultimately become friends, you naturally begin to wonder at the natural variety in life, and what it is that brought you to this point. In other words, it’s the perfect time for a letter. The radio is playing Whitney Houston’s “I will always love you,” which is kind of an odd thing to hear in a control room. I guess it was Saddam Hussein’s campaign theme song, so I guess no scenario can be weirder than that.

I think that both Lorie and I would concur that this week has been good. We are beginning to see a glimmer of progress in the organization of our house and in the garden. This week seemed to pass by in a blur, however, as both of us have been swamped with work and longer hours. Just when I was about to leave for the weekend and bask in freedom, I was given the “Jack Bauer mission,” as Lorie playfully quips, to go to Lousiana. It’s fun, and I love my job, but that just wasn’t the right time to be receiving that news. For those of you that have seen Office Space, you know what scene I’m thinking of.

It wasn’t all bad, though, as Lorie and I still had the pleasure of a date night on Friday. We ended up helping our friend Daniel move a motorized bed out of his home and move another one down a flight of stairs. If you’ve never moved a motorized bed, then congratulations – your back is probably still aligned. That was, hands down, one of the heaviest pieces of furniture I have tried to move, including the piano that I suspect gave me that last subconjunctival hemorrhage.

So today, aside from being tired out of my mind, I feel very sore. But it feels good – it was really a lot of fun. Throughout life I have always felt a very strong conviction that we should seek out the opportunities to serve one another and help in making the world a better and more comfortable place to live in.

I think that I first realized the true value of service while in college. Before college, service meant going to pull weeds on a widow’s lawn. Always. In school, however, I found that there were many ways that one could serve. I cleaned up both disgusting parks and beautiful gardens in the city. I helped kids with their math homework. I gave blood. I helped people with their taxes. And really, I could tell that people truly were grateful.

School really isn’t about the books, and neither is life, so to speak. I only truly enjoyed the practicality of being an engineer when it was applied to service. Oddly enough, the service I gave was what made me want to fully pursue my degree. Service really does give you a new perspective on the world; it can change your day and really lift your spirits.

I feel the following quote by Mother Teresa is applicable: “Do not worry about why problems exist in the world -- just respond to people's needs. We feel what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean, but that ocean would be less without that drop.”

Since college, I’ve found myself starting to focus on the causes of problems in our society and in the world. It’s all too easy. Perhaps it is time for me to bring back the focus to my neighbor, and to bringing a spirit of service back into my life.

Perhaps this is one of the main reasons that we are told to multiply our talents. The more talents we have, the more ways that we can serve. And when we have a greater variety of ways in which to serve, it becomes more fun (reference weeds above). We better equip ourselves with the ability to understand and to respond to the problems of others. Learning and growing is the first step, and applying the knowledge is the next.

Haha, well the song on the radio has changed by now. “This is the world we live in, and these are the hands we’re given. Use them and let’s start trying to make it a place worth living in…” How very timely. 10 points to the first person to identify the song without looking it up.