Do you live to serve?

A saying has been told me many years ago:

If you don’t live to serve, you are not worthy to live

In theory, this is in the Sao Paulo Fire Brigade Headquarter, but I was never able to check the validity of that and yet, I could not agree more with the idea of service as the foundation for a fulfilling life.

In a society focused on the person and personal satisfaction, we got into a cycle of taking and taking that is parallel to a cycle of being dissatisfied and unhappy. However, when you live to serve, something different happens…

The reason is that you can only serve someone if you have something to give the person: a doctor will give her or his knowledge and expertise, a priest will gave others his faith and guidance, a mother will give her time and energy, and so on.

So, when you dedicate yourself to serve others you automatically develop some skills and capacities that otherwise would take too long to being developed.

For instance, if I want to serve others by writing this blog, I need to reflect, to write well, to improve my English (thanks for your patience, by the way!) and make many more efforts so that the person on the other side of the screen can get something out of this, something valuable.

But those skills are not restricted to the task in hand; it will also help me to improve my relationships, to get better professional projects and so on.

By living to serve, automatically you start to feel you are alive, because you are much more than what you used to think you were.