The other day my little boy was busy on one of his important missions: pulling himself up on the book-shelf and meticulously throwing down all the books he could. These are his first milestones and I try to enjoy them attentively, because I know how fast he will grow up and leave the house and live his own life. And I wonder what will his life look like when he does. Will he be happy?

I was engrossed in just this thought when down came a few more books and a piece of paper landed on the floor. It fell out of the pages of a prayer book and had my husband’s handwriting on it. As I began deciphering it, I realized it was a list of goals and aspirations. Among the many ambitious career goals, one of the most memorable objectives was “to be an awesome dad and spend at least 5 hours of quality time a day with my family”. It was beautiful to read a piece of my husband’s heart. He still doesn’t know why I hugged and kissed him as he came out of the kitchen that morning. He thought it was his cologne. In our day to day life, we often don’t leave any time for a piece of our heart and we get so engrossed in fault-finding and demanding, that we forget how tender and noble the human soul is anyway. Reading my husband’s note was a reminder of the loftiness we all seek.

We set out to do grand things. None of us thinks: hey, let me life a mediocre life and be a mediocre person. Let me be a fly on the wall or let me just kind of veg out. And yet many of us seemingly end up with “mediocre” lives. Or so we think, because the standard we measure our achievements by is often unattained. But maybe the standard is our problem, and no matter whether we become the star-surgeon, the famous actress or the renowned writer or not, we can in fact be great. It is just that we measure greatness by all the wrong standards.

This week’s video on Doubletake is about a manicurist from Washington DC who’s done more with her life than I can say I have. Outwardly I have a “better” education, a sexier job title and a swimming-pool in my back yard. Outwardly she lives from pay-check to pay-check and gave up her house. Outwardly, if we made a list of worldly aspirations, I would outdo her. And yet, she puts me to shame with what she has really achieved. If we were both to die tomorrow, my guess is that she’d leave with more satisfaction that I would….watch the video!!!

My point is that we can have all sorts of goals and aspirations, and some of them we will reach and others we won’t. But at the end of the day, it’s better for us to attach our sense of achievement to “serving others” rather than titles, wealth or recognition. Because although we can try and reach those things, we just don’t know if we will and we just don’t know if the sacrifices we make for them are worth it. “Service”, on the other hand; serving others in whatever capacity and by whatever means we have available at any given moment; is something that every single individual can achieve. Right here, right now.

And then when we look back to a long life and remember the first steps we took and the life we dreamed up for ourselves, we’ll feel like “Hey! Not bad at all”…

• admin's blog
• Login or register to post comments
• فارسی
•