“How may I help?”
My brain wakes up a half-hour before I do every day. It starts thinking- always about me. How can I get what I want? What am I going to do about this ? Why am I this way? This is the source and measure of my sickness.
“Our very lives, as ex-problem drinkers, depend on our constant thought of others and how we might help meet their needs.” Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 2
This simple phrase changes my outlook and gets me out of self, at least temporarily. Sometimes that’s all it takes for me to get healthy, to stay in the now. I finally figured out that six billion people on the planet are all doing the same thing: trying to figure out how to get what they want out of life. Thinking about myself probably won’t inspire people, help make the world better nor make me healthier.
“Doing good to others is not a duty. It is a joy, for it increases your own health and happiness.” – Zoroaster
I struggle with empathy. Thinking about others is not normal for me. Seeing things from the other person’s perspective is awkward. When I can pull it off, I have an inspired moment. I feel better about myself, and I feel a part of the world, a part of humanity for that moment.
“Service to others is the rent which you pay for your room here on earth” -Muhammad Ali
How many people have helped me in my life? Parents, friends, teachers and employers come to mind immediately. How can I pay them back? Something happens when I realize they helped me for their own reasons- that their benevolence says more about them than it does about me. The universe is no longer personal. Helping others is my duty, my responsibility, the debt I pay for breathing good oxygen.
“There is no higher religion than human service.” – Woodrow Wilson
These are the days of confusing religious beliefs and human-based philosophies which seem to get, well, weirder, every day. There is no shortage of inspirational fluff on the Internet, often coming from some 22-year-old with a brilliant career and a way with words. Everyone, it seems, wants to boil down the information and express only the pure nuggets of truth and inspiration from the various religions. All the chatter gives me a headache. When I was younger, I argued every facet of religion fervently. Now, all I really know is that I am at my best when I am of service to others. The people who have had the greatest impression on me in my life have been servants.
“Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great” -Mark Twain
One of the great influences in my life was my Grandpa Jim. A Texan full of nearly-believable stories about his life, he seemed to have a profound effect on everyone who came near him. As I drew closer to being an adult, I began to realize why this was: Grandpa Jim was an encourager. Whatever harebrained notion I shared with him, he would say something like, “I’ll bet you’d be really good at that! You know, you’ve always had a good mind for…”. What a gift to share with the world- to help people walk a little taller! 
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“Only a life lived for others is worth living.” -Albert Einstein
I have a choice each morning. It takes no effort on my part to join the procession of petty people trying to extract their wants from others; my brain is already awake and working on that. I have a choice to quietly think of others, to meditate on how I may be of service, to consider what I can add to the lives of those around me. In short, I can ask, “How may I help?”
