Tag: service

Why Relationships and Service to Others Matter More Than Money

“Whatever possession we gain by our sword cannot be sure or lasting, but the love gained by kindness and moderation is certain and durable.” ~Alexander the Great

I remember when I was younger, my relatives on my mother’s side would visit our house almost weekly—not to check on us but to borrow money. We lived in a long house, with relatives and neighbors occupying different rooms, and since we were at the innermost part, they had to walk in to reach us. My parents were so accustomed to these visits that the moment they saw certain relatives, they knew what they wanted.

The conversations varied. Sometimes, my mother quietly gave them what they needed, but other times, there were heated arguments. I would hear shouts like, “You’ve changed ever since you married your husband!”—as if my mother was responsible for supporting them even though they had their own families.

My closest childhood friend was my niece, who was two years younger than me (my mother was born later than her first cousins, which explains the small age gap) and grew up in a wealthy family. We never fought, yet I remember sulking a few times because of hurtful remarks about money her relatives made to me.

I’ll never forget when her uncle said she shouldn’t be gullible around me, as I might ‘take advantage’ and try to get money from her. I was just twelve or thirteen at that time, when all I was concerned about was playing or studying. I did not understand the feeling back then, but the comment stung deeply.

It’s understandable that people who grew up in a rich family were protective of their wealth (as they should since they worked hard for it). But seeing relatives pointing guns at each other over money was shocking to me as a child.

I was young and neutral; however, I remember being asked by one side not to visit the other anymore, which I regret to this day. The latter side had always been supportive and loving, cheering me whenever I won awards, especially when I graduated as valedictorian in grade school. I never got to say goodbye to my uncle when he passed away; I deeply wished I was less ignorant of what was happening and stayed in touch.

These early experiences taught me how money can strain or even destroy relationships. Thankfully, my parents made sure I never felt we lacked for anything, and so our lives did not center around money. When I earned money from competitions or special awards, my mother let me decide what to do with it; I usually end up keeping it in my savings.

I grew up valuing simplicity, seeing money as a necessity for survival rather than the focus of my life. Even after working for seven years, I still get asked why I choose to commute or live simply when I have the means for more. I attribute it to knowing there are far more important things than money.

My Reflections about Money in Different Areas of Life

During the pandemic, when life slowed down and people were forced to reflect, I came across a course called The Science of Well-Being from Yale University. The course emphasized that, contrary to what we often believe, it’s not money, high-paying jobs, or material possessions that bring lasting happiness. Instead, science confirms it’s the simple things—social connections, kindness, gratitude, exercise, and sleep—that truly bring joy.

The course affirmed to me what is important and helped me further reflect on my life. Here are some of my thoughts and the questions I ask myself to stay grounded.

1. Relationships

Genuine relationships are not built on money but on shared experiences, both good and bad. While money might enable certain experiences like travel, the most meaningful bonds are often formed just by being present with one another.

For me, I prefer to keep a small circle of people I trust, knowing they will be there for me whether I have money or not.

2. Lifestyle

Lifestyle isn’t about the luxury brands you wear but about how you present yourself. Do you really need a Louis Vuitton bag when you could invest in things that bring more value to your life and fit them in a simpler, less expensive bag? Sometimes, flaunting wealth creates barriers, making others hesitate to connect with you.

As a commuter, I also value practicality—I wouldn’t want to risk losing something expensive just to show off.

3. Work

Work is necessary for survival, and we spend a large part of our lives doing it. But is it just about earning money, or should it also be about finding purpose and joy in what you do?

I have met many people who keep chasing higher salaries, but I wonder—when does the chase end? Once you reach your financial goal, will you still be happy if you’ve sacrificed your health, well-being, or peace of mind? No job is perfect. If there was a perfect job, everyone would be doing it.

4. Health

As cliché as it sounds, “Health is wealth.” Money can buy expensive food, but does that guarantee good health? It can buy medicine, but could your illness be linked to unhealthy habits that money enables, like indulgence in luxurious but unhealthy foods? Sometimes, the cheapest and simplest foods—like vegetables—are the healthiest. So, is it just about money?

5. Life/Purpose

Life is short. Do you think your purpose is to simply accumulate money for your own benefit?

I’m grateful to my parents for instilling in me the value of education—of constantly learning and striving for excellence, among anything else. I’m also thankful for an environment that showed me what not to focus on, and now I aim to use my blessings—whether through writing or my work in data—to help others.

When Alexander the Great, one of history’s greatest military generals, was on his deathbed, two of his dying wishes were to have his wealth displayed on the path to his grave to show that he couldn’t take any of it with him and to have his hands hang out of his coffin, signifying that he would leave this world empty-handed.

In the end, we only leave behind the marks we make on others. I hope you choose to touch at least one life with kindness and love rather than pursuing wealth alone.

November 10, 2024
I’m Kelly and I’m a Heroine Addict: Why I Get My Fix from Fixing People

“Self-will means believing that you alone have all the answers. Letting go of self-will means becoming willing to hold still, be open, and wait for guidance for yourself.”―Robin Norwood, Author of Women Who Love Too Much

My drug of choice is not the kind of heroin one shoots in their veins. My drug is the kind of heroine that ends with an e—the feminine version of hero.

When I help someone, and they are grateful for the gifts I offer, my brain fizzes with a cocktail of oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine, resulting in a “helper’s high” I ride through town like a homecoming queen on a float, waving a gloved hand, blowing air kisses at admiring fans.

There is no accident these two words, heroin and heroine, look and sound so much alike because they strangely have more in common than you might think: They are both highly addictive, both more destructive than the user realizes, and both leave a trail of collateral damage.

According to the twelve steps, we stand a chance at recovery only if we can admit we are powerless over our addiction and that our lives have thus become unmanageable… so this is my coming out party. I figure by making this public declaration, I won’t be as tempted to sneak back to my old ways.

My painful revelation was delivered to me on a cinematic silver platter, while driving with someone incredibly close to me—let’s call her Chloe. She was desperate to find a place to live… that is until I’d swooped in on my noble steed, found her a hidden gem of an apartment, vouched for her, and landed her the deal of the century.

Instead of being met with the gratitude I expected (and secretly craved), I was devastated by her volcanic rage. She spewed, causing me to nearly drive off the road.

What crime did I commit, you ask? The week earlier, she had called me, and I had the audacity not to hear my phone ring. In fury, she screamed about how I had set her up to need me, depend on me, and think of me as her savior. And then, when she needed me most, my phone’s ringer was off, leaving her alone to flail in pain, cursing the water I once walked upon.

In my defense, I never (consciously) promised Chloe I’d be her forever rescuer. Little acts of service became the gateway drug to more elaborate feats that took immense effort and a toll on my own life. I somehow imagined one day I’d receive a smiling postcard from her, telling me my services were no longer required because of how brilliantly her life turned out (thanks to me)… but that hasn’t happened (yet).

How did I co-create such an epic fail?

Hitting rock bottom with my “disease to please” sent me on a search-and-rescue mission of my past to discover the genesis of my addiction. My detective work led me, surprise, back to childhood.

As the eldest of five, I was awarded points from my well-meaning parents for doing big-sisterly things, such as treating my siblings like they were my babies, teaching them to tie their shoes, showing them how to swing a softball bat, and how to combat bullies.

I was raised believing it was my job to take care of them, and I proudly accepted that mantle. It empowered me; it made me feel important.

But what I didn’t realize was that while I was getting puffed up like the Goodyear blimp with praise, soaring higher with every pat on my back, some of the victims of my heroism were becoming progressively weakened. It was as if my efforts sent the unconscious message that they were broken and crippled and, without me, incompetent.

As I struggled to more deeply understand my heroine addiction, I sought the counsel of a friend who said, “Your struggle is a microcosm of a global issue. For example, the US has funneled over 500 billion dollars to Sub-Saharan Africa (to mitigate starvation and famine), only to make the situation worse when they pulled out.” He continued, “In spite of good intentions, if the giving is a handout, not a hand up (giving fish instead of teaching how to fish), it’s unsustainable, exacerbating—not curing—the problem it set out to fix.”

Even though I extended my support without conscious strategy or agenda, I hurt people more than I helped.

So, what is the solution?

It isn’t as simple as no longer helping people. It’s like being an overeater who can’t just swear off food. If I had an actual heroin addiction, my job would be to cease injecting the drug in my arm. But even Abraham Maslow taught that service is near the top of his hierarchy of needs, and I’ve certainly been a grateful receiver of people’s kindnesses.

This is clearly one of life’s “can’t live with it, can’t live without it” conundrums. Perhaps I just have to figure out how to do “service” differently.

So, as a newly sober heroine addict (an energy vampire cloaked behind a superhero cape), convulsing in withdrawals as I seek to live on the razor’s edge between serving and savior-ing, here are my marching orders, thus far. Just for today (and hopefully every day after), I will:

1. Fire myself from the job I unwittingly accepted (too enthusiastically) as a little girl: to be everyone’s big sister.

2. Admit I have a problem and that I am powerless over saving, fixing, and controlling people.

3. Give up the belief that I know best on how others should live their lives.

4. Refrain from getting my fix by fixing people, searching for God in all the wrong places.

5. Make ruthless compassion my replacement addiction, in the way heroin addicts safely detox using methadone or suboxone.

Ruthless compassion, by the way, is the unwillingness to see another as broken or inadequate, but instead as innately whole and complete, regardless of what they’ve been through or what they believe to be true about themselves.

6. Practice “For Fun and For Free”—this twelve-step motto is about only giving to others from surplus bandwidth (time, money, and energy) unless it’s a true emergency.

7. Tattoo my brain with my new personal prayer (a mashup of The Serenity Prayer and the lyrics to Kenny Roger’s “The Gambler”):

God grant me the serenity…
to know when to hold ‘em,
when to fold ‘em,
when to walk away
and when to run.

If you relate to my story, I hope this will help you with your hero or heroine addiction. But if it doesn’t, that’s okay. Because, through the lens of my new Ruthless Compassion sunglasses, I see you are more than capable of finding your own answers, thankfully without any excess do-gooding from me.

December 26, 2022
How to Live Your Dharma (True Purpose): The Path to Soul-Level Fulfillment

“Dharma actually means the life you should be living—in other words, an ideal life awaits you if you are aligned with your Dharma. What is the ideal life? It consists of living as your true self.” ~Deepak Chopra

From the moment I finished high school until my late twenties, I had “purpose anxiety.”

I wasn’t just confused and missing a sense of direction in life; my lack of purpose also made me feel inadequate, uninteresting, and lesser than other people.

I secretly envied those who had cool hobbies, worked jobs they loved, and talked passionately about topics I often didn’t know much about.

I even resented them for living “the good life” and kept wondering, “Why not me?”

Until it was my turn.

What it took to begin embracing my purpose—or dharma, as I prefer to call it—was one thing: love.

Let me explain.

The 4 Keys to Living Our Dharma (Purpose)

The Sanskrit word “dharma” has many meanings and most commonly translates to “life purpose” and “the life we’re meant to live.” I believe there are four main keys to living our dharma.

1. Cultivating self-worth: the essential first step.

I was bullied in high school, and as a result, I had very low self-esteem for many years. Looking back, I realize that feeling that low self-worth prevented me from embracing my dharma.

Why?

It was because I was too focused on trying to be liked and too worried about what other people thought of me to be in touch with my authentic self. I put all my energy into doing everything I could to look “cool” and be accepted by others rather than what my soul wanted to do, explore, and experience.

The essential idea is that embracing our dharma requires living authentically. As Deepak Chopra says, “[dharma] consists of living as your true self.”

The issue is that it can be difficult to express and live your truth when you feel inadequate, unworthy, and perhaps even unlovable. The risk of being rejected seems too high, and it feels unsafe.

So the first step to living our purpose, I believe, is cultivating radical self-love. It’s a bit of a “chicken and the egg” situation because having a strong sense of purpose increases self-esteem, but low self-esteem makes it hard to embrace our purpose. It’s best to develop both simultaneously.

Here are a few ideas to cultivate self-love that have helped me:

The first one is meditation.

Part of meditation is about allowing ourselves to become aware of and observe our own thinking. When we meditate, we disidentify from our thoughts and get to experience glimpses of who we truly are—of our essence—which is loving and infinitely worthy. As a result, we naturally start loving and accepting ourselves more. Meditation has undoubtedly been the number one thing that has improved my self-esteem.

Another thing that has helped me is self-care.

As I said, I didn’t have many friends in high school and spent much of my time alone. So I started going to the gym after school to do something with my time and be around people (even if I didn’t talk to them). Exercising regularly led to eating healthier and taking better care of myself in several other ways.

I find that self-care is a practical way to cultivate self-love. When you take care of yourself, you show that you care about yourself. Over time, you start genuinely feeling the self-love you are showing yourself and believing it.

The last (effective but cringy) thing that helped improve my self-esteem is an exercise that a therapist recommended.

Here’s how it goes: In the evening, stand in front of the mirror and—looking at yourself in the eyes—say, “I love you, [say your name]. I love [say three things you like about yourself], and you deserve all the good things life has to offer.” Try it for thirty days; it may change your life.

2. Being in touch with and following your inner compass.

Jack Canfield says, “We are all born with an inner compass that tells us whether or not we’re on the right path to finding our true purpose. That compass is our joy.”

Often, we seek purpose outside of ourselves, as if it’s some hidden treasure we need to find. But, as Mel Robbins puts it, “You don’t ‘find’ your purpose; you feel it.” What feels good—expansive, joyful, intriguing, exciting, or inspiring—to you?

That’s an important question because, according to numerous spiritual books I’ve read, those things we enjoy are clues guiding us to our dharma.

The main difficulty is usually differentiating our true desires from the ego’s “wants” and the desires that come from conditioning. The ego wants to feel important. It’s afraid of not being “good enough,” so it feels the need to prove its worth.

The “wants” that come from conditioning consist of what our parents and society have told us we “should” do. If we follow those “shoulds,” even though they don’t align with our authentic selves, we risk waking up one day and realizing that we’ve climbed the wrong ladder and lived our life for others instead of ourselves.

Here’s something that helps me differentiate those desires.

Make a list of all the things you want to have, do, experience, and become in the next few years.

For each item on your list, ask yourself why you want it. Is it because you feel the need to prove something or want to feel important or perhaps even superior to others? That’s the ego. Is it because you think that’s what you “should” do? That’s likely conditioning. Is it because it makes you feel alive? That’s your heart.

To live our dharma, we must follow our heart’s desires—the things we genuinely love. This requires authenticity and courage.

3. Savoring the experience of being alive.

Another aspect of dharma is loving life—living with presence and appreciating the experience of being alive. There are a few things I find helpful here:

The first idea is to keep a “Book of Appreciation,” as Esther Hicks calls it. Every day, take five minutes to journal about what you appreciate about someone, a situation, or something else in your life.

To savor life, we must also be present. In A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle states that true enjoyment does not depend on the nature of the task but on our state of being—we must aim for a state of deep presence.

He recommends being mindful when attending to even our most mundane tasks. I also like to go on long walks and observe (with presence) the natural elements around me—like the clouds passing in the sky, the smell of trees after the rain, and the sensation of the sun’s rays on my face.

And, of course, having a daily gratitude practice is always a winner!

4. Extending love through joyful service.

Dharma is also about sharing—extending love. One of the best ways to contribute to the collective is to share our gifts in a way that’s enjoyable to us.

We all have natural gifts—things that come easier to us than to others. Some people are good at writing, while others are great leaders or excel at analyzing data. Perhaps you like to create, manage, nurture, delight, support, empower, listen, guide, or organize.

There’s also another, more profound aspect of contribution that comes from being rather than doing. I remember a passage from a book I read many years ago (I can’t remember what book it was) that went something like this:

“Your contribution [to the collective] is your level of consciousness.”

A higher consciousness radiates greater love, and one of the best ways to uplift others is by being a loving presence.

Dharma: The Bottom Line

Bob Schwartz, the author of Your Soul’s Plan and Your Soul’s Gift, says, “We are here to learn to receive and give love. That’s the bottom line.”

This involves loving ourselves, others, and life in general, and also following our heart—doing things we genuinely love.

I don’t know about you, but this perspective on dharma feels good to me. It has freed me from my “purpose anxiety.”

I hope it can serve you too.

September 26, 2022
3 Painful Consequences to Overgiving and People-Pleasing
People-pleasing, overhelping, overgiving—we can give it lots of different names, but the consequences of putting yourself last all the time are generally the same.

You may have been raised to see giving and helping as virtuous things. And hear me say, they are. I believe wholeheartedly that it’s a beautiful thing to serve, support, and help others. However, people-pleasers don’t always know when to draw the line; they give and give almost as if they have an endless supply of time, energy, and resources.

Surprisingly, people-pleasing is often about control. It’s rooted in your need to try and boost your own self-esteem, avoid conflict, and manipulate the environment into what you need it to be to feel at ease.

But I can assure you, there are vast and detrimental consequences to working so hard to please and appease others. I know firsthand. My overgiving, overhelping ways were rooted in my deep need to be seen, supported, and cared for. I’ve experienced fried adrenal glands not once, but twice from pushing so hard to say yes to everything but me.

Let me share with you some of the costs of overgiving and people-pleasing now.

Deep Resentment

The more you try to please those around you, the less time you have for yourself and the things you need and desire, which then leads to feeling resentful.

If your needs aren’t being met by those around you (because, let’s face it, most people-pleasers aren’t being honest and telling our people what we need), it can cause deep hurt and anger.

It’s not other people’s job to read our minds. It’s our job to speak our truth and be honest, but often, we fail to do so. So when they don’t intuit or “just know” our needs, we start becoming resentful toward them too. “Arghhh, how can they be so uncaring?”

Anger then takes hold. Resentment is what happens when we stuff or suppress that anger (common for the people-pleaser—remember, we need to keep the harmony at all costs, so speaking on behalf of our anger is major a taboo!).

And once resentment kicks in, that’s when the illness of bitterness seeps in and festers. Resentment is what leads to long marriages and relationships of contempt, rolling eyes, and “staying together for the kids.” It leaks out as criticism, defensiveness, and snarky side comments. It explodes in the kitchen at a random comment (that actually isn’t random—it simply pressed on the already existing wound).

Loss of Identity

People-pleasers spend a great deal of time editing themselves—so much so that they lose sight of who they really are.

When you’re always trying to please other people, you often hide yourself or morph into behaving like other people to get what you want. You’re a master chameleon, an expert at being anyone… other than you.

This was my ammo 100%. I didn’t know who I was because I had spent decades trying to be what I thought others wanted me to be. It was the only way I knew how to keep myself safe. I had spent years feeling like I was unlikable, didn’t fit in, or that I wasn’t smart enough. So I simply bought into the notion that I had to go along to get along.

This led me straight down a path to never understanding what I enjoyed, liked, disliked, or needed because I rarely made any choices for myself. I didn’t put aside time for myself and explore new things because I had no idea what those things might be. So I just didn’t. I continued in my pattern of pleasing and appeasing to my own detriment.

Loss of Intimacy/Loss of Relationships

For a typical people-pleaser, their relationships often look one-sided.

Let me guess, you’re the one that:
- Plans outings
- Is the listening ear
- Is the shoulder to cry on
- Everyone calls when they need something
- Is always “holding space for others”
This makes you feel needed, wanted, valued, and important. But when you stop to think about it, you realize you’re not getting the same in return.

It’s not hard to see how this leads to short-lived relationships following a set pattern:

Joy and fun at first, then you start to feel exhausted, then resentment creeps in, followed by mild confrontation and the inevitable parting of the ways. (And I know because this is a pattern I followed more times than I care to confess).

There came a point where I had to get honest about the depth of my friendships. Yes, many were fun. But they lacked the support and intimacy that I longed for. No one ever asked about me and what I had going on. No one ever held space for my hurts and frustrations in life. I often felt emptier when I came home from spending an evening together than I did when I left.

Fear kept me in those relationships long past their expiration dates. I didn’t walk away sooner because I was too scared to be alone.

I noticed that I held back from being honest and sharing myself with them. I didn’t think I could be intimate or vulnerable, so at some point, the relationship simply expired. Just like a carton of yogurt that gets pushed to the back of the refrigerator, it saw its final date.

As I was growing and healing, I began to see that the people I had chosen to be in relationships with were no longer healthy for me. My soul was healing, and I was learning to align with relationships that felt honest and authentic.

Speaking your truth and asking for what you need doesn’t make you a selfish person. It makes you a real person with real needs, and real relationships are only formed when we are willing to be… you guessed it, real.

It’s okay to want to help and support people. I’m not telling anyone to be a jerk and to never lend a helping hand. However, you need to know where to draw the line; you need to find a balance of helping them and you.

We all matter. We all have needs that matter. And the only way to get our needs met is to be honest about them—and to set healthy boundaries that honor them.

Boundaries are not about saying no all the time and demanding things of other people. Boundaries are about knowing where the line is for you and communicating that line in a way that is firm and compassionate so you can flourish and thrive.

When set correctly, boundaries give both people a choice as to what happens next in the relationship. It’s okay sometimes to walk away. But it’s also okay to stay in the relationship and practice honesty and intimacy if that feels right. When you start to become familiar with boundary-setting, your intuition will guide your next steps.

Trust yourself. I know from being a recovering people-pleaser that this step alone can be so challenging, as we don’t really know who we are, so how do we trust ourselves? But that small, still voice within has always been there, guiding and leading. The difference is, now you’re listening.
May 12, 2022
Why You Should Stop Looking for Your Purpose and What to Do Instead

“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” ~Pablo Picasso

Twenty years is a long time when you know you’re meant to be doing something, but you don’t quite know what it is or how to go about doing it.

To cut a two-decade story very short, I found the seeds of my purpose when volunteering in a hospital playroom with pediatric cancer patients in Romania one summer when I was twenty years old. And, though I have made many an attempt over the years, I am only now beginning to truly live the purpose I’ve felt a fire for these past two decades.

Purpose anxiety is a common twenty-first century affliction.

So many of us today seem to struggle with this quest of finding our purpose. And then there’s the other side of that search; when you actually find what it is you’re here to do, how do you go about living it? And if you feel called to do something that feels so much bigger than yourself, how do you go about living up to that vision?

I have struggled with both the before and after of finding my purpose. In the end, it took one small change to terminate my two-decade to-and-fro, and to finally start living my purpose Though it might seem such an insignificant detail, what kept me stuck for so long was the word purpose.

Purpose is just a seven-letter word, but it has a huge emotional charge.

Purpose conjures up so many ideas, ideals, shoulds, and fantasies before you even start to consider what yours is. The pressure is on from the get-go. And this pressure isn’t conducive to finding it.

The other thing about the word purpose is that it seems to live outside oneself—like something lost that you have to find. Another commonly used word for purpose is calling. It has the exact same effect. It’s like something is out there somewhere, guiding you to it, and you have to go on a search to find it.

What finally set me free was changing the word purpose to another.

I clearly remember the moment when I made this change in vocabulary and it all just clicked. I was, maybe quite cliché, looking out onto the horizon while walking along the beach and at the same time wrestling with my purpose-related demons.

That day I seemed to see deeper than ever before into my patterns of self-sabotage and self-doubt, my fear of failure, and what failing would mean to my self-worth. And I remembered something I had heard recently about coming at life from the perspective of what we can give instead of what we can get from it.

I realized that the dark clouds of fear and doubt had made me lose sight of the reason I was on this path in the first place. And I knew I had to get back to my purpose roots—to get back to just giving.

The simple word swap was from purpose to gift.

From that very moment I stopped chasing my purpose and started focusing on giving my gift. With such a profound change in my attitude and action from such a simple change in terminology, I started reflecting on how powerful each word was and what shifts in perspective came from the switch.

Here are three lessons I have learned from replacing the word purpose with gift.

1. You finally end that external treasure hunt.

When you change “What’s my purpose?” to “What’s my gift to share with others?”, the magnitude of the question diminishes. Your gifts live within you. You don’t have to look elsewhere to find them.

So it no longer feels like a treasure hunt with no tools; instead, it becomes a realization that a purpose isn’t a mystical calling that visits us one day in a beam of light. It is quite simply a path of giving our gifts to the world.

2. You realize that you don’t need to live just one true purpose.

The trap of looking for our purpose is that we assume it’s just one big treasure chest that we are on a voyage for.

When I made this subtle change in vocabulary, I suddenly saw that not only did I know what my gift was, but I realized that I had multiple gifts that I wanted to share (including writing). When we look at it as sharing our gifts, we realize that there are so many ways we can live purposefully, and that it can all be part of our purposeful journey through life. So the anxiety of “but is this my true calling?” diminishes.

3. Those feelings of self-doubt or fear around doing something bigger than yourself break away.

Over those twenty years my purpose had taken on a life of its own. If fact, you could say that living my purpose had become my purpose! I had built it up so much in my mind that, in the end, it felt an almost impossibility to make come true. I can’t tell you the number of times I froze at the first hurdle for fear of not living up to the 4D vision I had in my head. I felt incapable of bringing my purpose to life.

But the day I flipped purpose on its head and started seeing it as merely sharing my gift with others, I instantly knew that I was so very capable of that. And the fear, self-doubt, cold feet, and self-sabotaging all just seemed to fade.

So for anyone reading this who identifies as a purpose-seeker, I invite you to try being a gift-giver instead.

Because after all, the point of purpose is to live it, not look for it.

What gifts do you have to share with the world?

May 1, 2022
Why “Find Your Purpose” is Bad Advice and What to Do Instead

“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” ~Pablo Picasso

I was fifty-two when I found my purpose. I wasn’t even looking. It literally just smacked me upside the head. That’s a funny thing about life. It throws things your way, and you either grab them and run with them or you turn a blind eye and walk on by.

I used to turn a blind eye. I don’t anymore. These days I’m taking in all that life tosses my way. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

How My Purpose Found Me

I had just left an abusive relationship and declared bankruptcy. You could say my life was a complete mess. I had also just hit rock bottom and was starting the grueling climb out. It was frustrating and exhausting.

During my healing and self-discovery journey I did something that changed the entire course of my life. I started volunteering at a homeless shelter.

I’ll be honest with you, I did that for two reasons. One was selfish. The other, humanitarian (and sincere).

I desperately needed to take my mind off all my problems, and I figured the only way to do that was to surround myself with people whose problems were way bigger than mine. And it worked. But something else happened.

I fell in love with the homeless people I met and found a deep sense of purpose. Phew! I sure didn’t see that coming.

I then made it my mission to do more of that. Help people, all people, even animals. I just wanted to help everyone and everything anyway I could, as often as I could.

I had found my purpose, and that was to do my part to make the world a better place.

I Never Understood the Meaning of “Find Your Purpose”

I honestly thought that phrase was overrated and overused.

It seems to suggest purpose is something outside ourselves that we miraculously stumble upon someday. “Oh, did you hear? Mary found her purpose today.”

And it also creates a lot of stress and pressure to hurry up and figure it out. “I’m still looking for my purpose, and I’m frustrated that I’m having such a hard time with this.”

I couldn’t understand why everyone was desperately seeking their purpose. I was just trying to navigate life the best way I knew how in order to have inner peace and be happy, while others were searching for this holy grail.

I questioned myself. Should I be looking for this too? Do I need to find it before I die? Will my life be incomplete if I don’t? Will I die with regret then?

I was confused. What’s the big deal about finding your purpose? It was starting to freak me out.

My Aha Moment

After my first night at the homeless shelter, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I wanted to do that for the rest of my life. Just give and serve and make people happy. I wanted to turn frowns upside down and get hugs and make people’s lives better, any way I could.

Did I finally discover my purpose without even realizing it? Was this what everyone was talking about?

I assumed it was. I assumed that this was it! I’d found my purpose and now my life was complete. Or was it?

I was puzzled by something.

Isn’t This Everyone’s Purpose?

I couldn’t understand why me serving homeless people and helping humans and critters in any way I could was some special purpose.

Shouldn’t we all be doing that? As humans sharing the same planet in the galaxy, shouldn’t we all be doing our part to help other human beings (and critters)?

It’s more than that, though. It’s so much bigger than that. It’s about finding joy and peace in knowing you did your part to make the world a better place.

That’s what the definition of purpose should be.

Stop Looking for Your Purpose

Maybe we should just ditch the word purpose and replace it with something that doesn’t sound so foreboding. Maybe instead of saying, “I’m trying to find my purpose in life” we should try saying, “I’m doing my part to make the world a better place.”

It just has a nicer ring to it.

There’s so much anger, hurt, hatred, and frustration in the world today. The world needs more love. People need more love. When we see things and people through the eyes of love and compassion something magical happens.

We understand, we don’t judge, we feel for each other, and it brings us all one step closer to having inner peace and joy.

So how can you make the world a better place?

What special gift, talent, or skill do you have that you can offer the world?

It doesn’t have to be what you do for a living, though that’s clearly the ideal, since we spend so much time at our jobs. Maybe it starts as something you do on the side and grows over time. Or maybe it doesn’t, but maybe having something that fills you up will help make your 9-5 more tolerable.

The important thing is that you find some way to help people that leverages your unique passions and interests. Then even if you don’t love your job, you’ll feel a sense of meaning, and you’ll feel good about yourself and the difference you’re making.

Maybe you love animals and can volunteer at a shelter.

Maybe you make people feel good about themselves by simply sharing kind words to strangers.

Or maybe you’re passionate about knitting or sewing or singing and you can find ways to use those talents to brighten other people’s lives. I mean, the possibilities are endless.

We need to do more things that spread joy, hope, and love to the people around us, even if it’s something small. Sometimes it’s the smallest acts that have the biggest impact.

If you’re stressing about the fact that you are getting older and haven’t found your purpose yet, stop. It’s overrated. Instead, find ways to serve and in turn, inspire others to serve.

It’s not about finding your purpose. It’s about living your life to the fullest and knowing at the end of the day that you did your very best to make someone else’s day brighter and better. It’s about doing that every day until you die. That’s a life well-lived. And if you want to call that your purpose, so be it.

June 8, 2021
How to Help Without Hurting Yourself and Avoid Healer Burnout

“Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals.” ~Pema Chodron

The technical term is Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. This is when one stumbles upon a new, unfamiliar, or unusual piece of information, and soon encounters that same subject again, within a short time, sometimes repeatedly.

So, for example, you decided to take the plunge for that hipster, purple hair streak that you thought was so punk rock, but now you see it on everyone.

You have recently been car shopping, narrowing it down to a couple of choices, and now Honda Fits are having babies everywhere you look.

Or you just stumbled on the amazing word “phantasmagorical.” See, I passed it along and now I bet you are going to see this word everywhere.

The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon has been showing up for me within the context of healing, helping, and service. They seem to be popping out of the woodwork: people who are searching, no longing, to have their occupation better reflect their desire to help others. And it is a gorgeous, hopeful thing.

Whether it is a natural paradigm swing related to politics, racial injustices, our climate crisis, or just a general craving to hold the warm pulse of our shared humanity, people are wanting to do more. We know the planet does not need more stockbrokers. But we feel an urgent need for more peacemakers, storytellers, teachers, healers, dreamers, activists, and lovers of all kinds.

I have been swimming in this world of service for the last fifteen years, tending to people’s hearts, minds, and bodies through my work as an acupuncturist and herbalist.

I came to this work with a very open heart, deeply wanting to bring a balm of medicine to the suffering of those around me. Even now I can feel the give-the-shirt-off-my-backness that I possessed in the beginning. It was very beautiful, but not very sustainable.

It continues to be a very fulfilling journey, but there are a few things I wish I had known from the beginning. Because only a few short years into my practice, I began to feel the effects of going “all in” without knowing how to hold healthy boundaries for myself and others.

My slow lowering into the fiery pit of burnout began in subtle ways, like taking more naps. Which turned into not being able to make it through a single day without figuring out when I could get horizontal.

I would often spend the weekend afternoons with my friend the couch, not wanting to leave my perch of pillows. A lifelong exerciser, I no longer had the energy for even a stroll with my dogs around the block. And getting in regular snacks and meals became a new part-time job for fear of blood sugar crashes, with shakes and nausea. My physical form was in full revolt, and I was crispy fried exhausted.

I wish I could say that I have only experienced one bout of adrenal fatigue over the last many years, but the truth is, there have been several. And there are a few words of advice that I wished someone had given me a long time ago, that I pass along to you now.

1. Take time every morning to set up your boundaries.

The topic of energy boundaries is vast, but in the simplest of terms, we need to have practices in place so that we don’t absorb the energy, emotions, or vibrations of those around us.

I don’t care if you are a doctor, a firefighter, a teacher, a health coach, a social worker, a massage therapist, or a hospice nurse, when you work with other people, you will sometimes pick up their stuff. We all experience this in our everyday lives.

For example, you are driving home from work, feeling tired but settled, when your best friend calls you. Without warning she launches into her most horrific day, her delayed work project, her demeaning boss and her backstabbing coworkers. At the end of the conversation she apologies for “dumping on you” and hangs up. And how do you feel? Completely slimmed.

Depending on the exact work you do, the intensity level, the number of interpersonal interactions you have daily, and your own health and sensitivity level, you may need more practices than others. But here is a simple one to start off with.

Every morning before you start your day, take ten minutes to set up your “container.” Your container is really a mirror into your attitude toward yourself. You can see it as a bubble, an egg, or the semi-permeable membrane of a cell. It is not an armoring, but a reflection of your own internal fullness. And most importantly you are arranging your container so that it only contains your vibration or higher, that everything else will shed away.

The more time you allow your imagination to create with this, the stronger your container will feel.

2. Take time every evening to clear and let go of anything that is not yours.

Will your container function perfectly all day long? Not usually. It’s natural that when we get tired, overwhelmed, or overworked, your container starts to get some little holes in it. That’s why it’s important to clear all of the energetic debris from your day.

Take ten min before falling asleep to let go of anything you’ve been carrying, or anyone else’s energy that is not yours to hold.

You can do this by welcoming in the elements—letting the water of a shower wash you clean, imagining wind blowing you clear, or seeing your entire old container compost into the earth, like a skin that you are shedding. And then in your mind, make the simple internal request to call your own energy back, any power that you lost over the course of the day while you were in giving mode.

3. Recognize what self-care really is.

Self-care is not some kind of entertainment that allows you to zone out from the challenges of your life. It can’t be bought by shopping therapy. It can’t be applied to the body in the form of more manis and pedis. It is not something that you search for in your external world that you hope will make you feel full and rich inside.

Real self-care is something that fills up your internal well. It’s something that breathes vitality and life force into your container. It adds energy to your system instead of glossing over the surface or giving out more.

Some examples of worthwhile self-care include Qi Gong, Tai Qi, many forms of yoga, chanting, meditation, prayer, and, my favorite of all, being in nature. There is a reason that naturalist, John Muir, so many years ago, figured out that, “into the forest I go to lose my mind and find my soul.”

4. Know that you don’t need to save the world.

Whatever you are doing, it is enough. However small it seems at this time, it’s plenty. When we are really driven by a desire to help others it can often feel like there is always more to do. Or anything we actually do is just a drop in some endless ocean.

Even the word service can be misused and misunderstood. Merriam-Webster defines service as the “occupation of serving,” like you are someone’s servant, or even subservient, which means “below, compliant, obedient.”

Zen Buddhist teacher, Joan Halifax, describes how “it’s sometimes challenging to keep altruism healthy; as we stand at this cliff’s edge, we can be vulnerable to falling into harm.” This is when are we are so excessively focused on helping others that we ignore our own needs. And the truth is that most altruists are really good at giving and really terrible at receiving.

Dr. Barbara Oakley created the term pathological altruism, which she describes as “behavior in which attempts to promote the welfare of another, or others, results instead in harm that an external observer would conclude was reasonably foreseeable.”

This is the teacher that eats a five-minute lunch everyday in order to be ready for her next class and all of her extra responsibilities. This is the nurse that holds her bladder for ten hours, purposely not drinking water, because her rounds are so slammed. This is the activist who “sleeps” on her desk for days and days during a busy voting season.

When the original heart of our giving fades into a kind of exhausted fog, we begin to find our service being dangerously driven by fear, compulsion, and cynicism. When we expect ourselves to save the world, we will inevitably be met with a sense that our work is ultimately of no benefit to anyone, including ourselves.

5. No more wounded healers allowed.

It is time to ask now: What is my original motivation of being in service? How does my own need to feel of value, and ultimately my ego, stand in the way of more authentically doing my work?

Continue to do the deep, personal work of healing and transforming your own wounds, traumas, and dramas so that the lens that you see and heal through is no longer about you.

Continue to strengthen your own rooted sense of confidence and inherent worth so that you don’t need to find it through “helping” other people.

As painter, Georgia O’Keeffe, once said, “I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.” Because it is an extremely shaky way to live when your sense of self is entirely tied up in your perceived outcome of helping others.

We live in a very results-driven, outcome-oriented society. But the truth is that we have no control over how and what another person does with our help. Allow it to be an offering with no accolades attached. Every treatment, every session, every day teaching, or every kindness extended. That once it is given, it is gone, and it is no longer about us.

I once tried to explain this idea to a friend who was just starting off teaching meditation. She was having a hard time understanding how you could let go of the outcome of your work.

“Isn’t the entire point to provide value and service? Isn’t your ultimate goal to want to help” she asked?

“Well yes,” I said, “of course your intention is to help. But you don’t have any control over the outcome. So stop ruminating and obsessing over ‘giving people their money’s worth or providing results.’ ”

We had a laugh together a few weeks later when she confessed that while still resisting this idea, she had a session with a new client. During the session, she felt really inspired, like she was making a big impact on this woman, like she said all of the right things. When the session was finished the client felt great, but only because she had fallen asleep and not heard a single word my friend had said.

This story still plays out in my head occasionally when I catch my intentions shifting off course. And then I remember to reorient my work from a place of offering, a candle contained in a little floating basket, gently rocking and drifting out into the sea of life.

I wish this for you too. May you always believe in your unconditional value so that your insecurities or doubts never cloud your highest work. May you continue to feel your own humanness as you more fully connect with the humanness of others. May you enjoy many, long years meeting others with empathy, respect, and integrity.

January 15, 2019
Healing Through Service: 20 Ways to Help Others (and Yourself)

“To ease another’s heartache is to forget one’s own.” ~Abraham Lincoln

A feral cat tempered my most recent bout with depression. I wasn’t seriously depressed, nothing like the debilitating times in my past, but I had a fairly strong case of the blues.

It was just before Thanksgiving, that time of year when people across America break bread with family and friends, and I was feeling sorry for myself.

I missed the gatherings we used to have when I was married. My ex-husband and I both loved to cook and every year we put together a gourmet feast for a group of family and friends.

This year I would be alone.

I live on the high desert and winters are harsh. Outside a sixty mile an hour wind was howling and a blanket of snow covered the ground. It didn’t help my mood.

When I opened the door to let my dog out to pee, I heard a high-pitched mewling. From the frozen hillside a scrawny white and black cat came crawling out of the sage. Its fur was matted and its ribs showed.

When I moved toward it, it retreated with a hiss. My own calico eats well, so I borrowed some of her Fancy Feast, a cup of dry food, and a bowl of water and set it outside.

Before long the cat was a regular visitor, but what was more gratifying is within a week it had filled out, and while its tail was still matted, its fur began to look glossier.

The cat, however, showed no appreciation. It continued to spit and growl when I brought its food out, and I have no doubt it would have taken off a finger if it could.

As the days went by I found myself looking out the window for the cat. I stuffed some blankets under the shed, although it rarely slept there. Once it ate, it moved back out into the desert.

I also found my depression lifting. I shared Thanksgiving dinner with a small group of new friends and when I returned home, the cat, with its usual ill-tempered snarl, was under the shed.

I brought out its food and told it, “You could come inside if you’d just chill out.” It pulled its ears back and hissed.

Small things can change our mood and they often have one thing in common—helping someone or something else. As soon as we step outside our own problems and feel compassion for someone who has it worse than we do, we begin to appreciate the life that’s in front of us.

It was impossible to not feel moved for this tiny creature that had survived in such a harsh environment. At night it seemed coyotes crawled out from every bush and burrow, yet it eluded them.

When it snowed I worried about it, but the following day its tracks would be in the snow and I’d find it hiding under the shed.

There are many ways we can be of service in the world. Even small acts of compassion can go a long ways. I think it’s more effective than donating money.

Of course, everyone needs money and it’s great to contribute to something we believe in, but money is service at a distance. It doesn’t alleviate the heart the way genuine human kindness does.

When we hand over a plate of hot food at a soup kitchen or save an abused animal, we’re connecting with another living being. We’re touching hands or fur, sharing a smile or a word.

Even if you’re shy and don’t like to be in groups there are many low-key, private ways to help lift someone’s spirit or ease an animal’s suffering:

1. Do you like to cook? Bake some extra pies and donate them to a homeless shelter.

2. Become a virtual mentor for a teen through a site like icouldbe.org.

3. Volunteer at a local school. Many schools are short staffed and welcome community involvement.

4. Knit or crochet afghans or scarves and take them to your local senior center.

5. Offer to babysit for a friend. You serve the adult, who could use a night out, and being around kids is often uplifting.

6. Volunteer to shop for a sick neighbor.

7. Volunteer for a crisis hotline.

8. Offer to take an elderly person shopping, to the movies or just for a drive.

9. Volunteer to read to children at your library’s story hour.

10. Put together a hygiene kit for a homeless person that includes toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, soap, etc.

11. If you pass a panhandler, take them out for a hot meal. Listen to their story.

12. Volunteer at your local animal shelter. If you’re able, adopt a shelter dog or cat. If you can’t make a long-term commitment, you might consider becoming a temporary foster parent for a shelter animal until they find a permanent home.

13. Send a card to a hospitalized kid through a site like cardsforhospitalizedkids.com or to someone in the military through a site like amillionthanks.org.

14. Rake, shovel or clean for an elderly neighbor.

15. Donate blood. You never know when your blood will save someone’s life.

16. Color (alone or with your child) and donate the picture to Color A Smile.

17. Do you have a special talent? Offer to do a free one-day workshop at a low-income community center or battered women’s shelter.

18. Offer to teach someone to read.

19. Donate your used books or clothing to a shelter.

20. Do small acts of service throughout the day—hold the door for people, let someone go in front of you at the grocery store if they have fewer items. Smile.

—

Once you begin to think of ways to help, the possibilities are endless. You are giving to the world, and as a result you’ll find yourself thinking less of your own problems and your heart softening.

When we approach life with an attitude of service we develop empathy. It’s no longer about us, but about what someone else needs.

As for the cat, when you feed something, a responsibility goes with it. For the past several weeks I’ve tried to trap it to take into our local feral cat clinic where they will spay or neuter and vaccinate it. So far it’s eluded me, even managing to twice steal the food without setting the trap.

There’s a lesson in this as well. Service is not the same as saving.

We can help ease another’s suffering, but we’re not responsible for saving them. We need to accept that sometimes our service isn’t wanted or appreciated and if necessary, we need to step back and let them go.

Some people don’t want to be saved. Some cats don’t want to be caught.

It doesn’t matter. Being of service isn’t about accolades or praise. It’s about healing the world and us by taking tiny steps to make the planet a better, more compassionate place for all the creatures that share it.

Woman and kitten image via Shutterstock

March 17, 2016
3 Things You Can Do To Feel Happier, Right Now

“The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now.” ~Robert G. Ingersoll

In The Four Noble Truths, the Dalai Lama wrote, “It is a fact—a natural fact of life—that each one of us has an innate desire to seek happiness and to overcome suffering.”

Regardless of religion or creed or upbringing, I think we can all agree on this most universal of statements. Underneath whatever personalities we project and whatever lives we lead lies a foundational truth that applies to all of us: We want to be happy; we don’t want to suffer.

So what can we do now, today, to feel happier? Before I describe specific practices, let me explain how I view change and self-improvement. As the old saying goes, there are two sides to a coin, and this positive-negative duality applies just as much here.

For example, “we want to be happy” is the positive side of the statement above, or what to do, and “we don’t want to suffer” is the negative, or what not to do.

Any challenge, whether it’s becoming a happier you or dropping a bad habit, gets much easier and gives more lasting results if you focus on the positive aspect of the situation (what you should do) as opposed to the negative (what you shouldn’t do).

Focusing on the positive creates a set of habits that ultimately lead to a better lifestyle, built by you and around your goals.

The negative path enforces rules and boundaries that ultimately lead to internal mental resistance and a diminished self-esteem. This realization made all the difference in my pursuit of happiness.

What You Can Do Today

Before this insight, I would spend my days trying to figure out what situations to avoid, what habits to control, where to go or whom to see for happiness. After the shift in my thinking, I began asking myself what I should do specifically to live a happier life.

Much trial and error, many years, and many books later, I uncovered three main conditions under which a person feels truly happy: appreciation of the present moment, hope of future achievement, and service to others.

These conditions are quite different and imply, in my opinion, different forms of happiness. Some individuals will naturally gravitate toward one or two out of three, or even just one. That’s normal.

If you can handle all three, go for it. If not, don’t worry. Alone or combined, they all make for a dramatic improvement in quality of life and awaken a happier you.

1. Appreciation of the present moment

At its highest level, this means to become intensely focused on the present and, in some cases, to suspend time entirely. If you can do this, great. But not all of us are masters at entering the now. For most of us, leading a lifestyle of gratitude is the best and most practical way to cultivate appreciation for the present moment.

A fail-proof technique I found was to reflect at the end of each day and express written gratitude for one to three things, events, or whatever I felt grateful for.

Doing this daily brings about a shift in mentality from “what’s lacking in my life?” to “what is here before me now?” until being grateful eventually becomes second nature. If on certain days you truly can’t find anything worth being grateful for, don’t force yourself.

That said, there is no shortage of things for which we can be grateful. At the very least you can breathe, and you likely have somewhere to sleep, can see and read this article, and have food to sustain you. Those are all things to be grateful for. Imagine life without them.

2. Hope of future achievement

The second condition, hope for future achievement, implies a different, more worldly sort of happiness. This does not always mean monetary gain, although that is usually a product of achievements such as business expansion, securing a job, or earning a promotion. This type of success, within reason, is normal. Our biological need to survive compels us to pursue it.

But achievement comes in many other forms. It can mean physical feats such as finishing a triathlon, or a personal journey of self-enlightenment, or even little things like becoming more organized and driven.

All of these endeavors give us end goals to surpass and offer us the promise of due reward should we succeed. This promise is what instills us with a sense of happiness. That’s why dreamers and optimists are often happier than realists. They believe in the promise of a better future.

I found that daily visualization is a great way to nurture hope for future achievement. Think about a goal you genuinely want to achieve and put it in writing. Then twice daily, visualize yourself experiencing the success associated with whatever achievement you’re focused on. You don’t have to know how you will arrive at the end destination. Just imagine the end destination.

For me, that means visualizing the day I open my own holistic self-development studio, or the day I sign the contract for publication of my first novel.

For a detailed look at how and why this technique works, I suggest reading Psycho-Cybernetics by Dr. Maxwell Maltz. But in short, visualization communicates your inner desire to your subconscious mind. Over time, you become what you consistently imagine yourself to be, and you achieve what you consistently imagine yourself achieving.

3. Service to others

The third condition, service to others, is what helped me the most. I always knew myself to be a talented and capable person. But time and experience showed me that talent and capacity alone aren’t enough for a happy life.

I felt like my connection with others lacked strength and authenticity, almost as though I lived at an arm’s length from society. This, I believe, held me back more than anything.

Service to others changed all of that. Make a conscious attempt each day, as I did, to do one kind thing for someone without telling anyone about it, ever. I highly recommend trying this for at least twenty-one days. It changes your perspective on the profound interconnectedness of all beings and all things.

It teaches you first and foremost to give without expecting anything in return, to do for the sake of doing and not for the recognition.

Not telling others about your acts of kindness also builds discipline and becomes a secret between you and yourself, something to be proud of. Third, it teaches you that bringing happiness to others does more for your own happiness than any worldly escape or distraction.

Start Now

Do not wait for happiness. Start now. It is within your grasp and you deserve it. It doesn’t have to be elusive. Look for it in the simpler things in life. Express gratitude for something. Visualize success and a better you. Render an act of kindness and keep it to yourself. Implement these practices in your life to feel happier, right now.

Photo by David Robert Bilwas

May 7, 2014
How to Fill the Emptiness in Your Life

“Find your Calcutta.” ~Mother Teresa

Something is missing in your life, isn’t it?

You’re working hard, trying to get ahead, doing everything you possibly can to make life just a little bit better. You’re trying to keep it all balanced, though. You won’t be one of those people who commits every waking second to work and the pursuit of a career.

Not you. You’ve got it figured out. You even make time to exercise, eat right, meditate, or maybe spend time with friends and family.

You’ve got it all figured out—except for that one stupid thing that keeps tugging at your heart. You don’t really know what it is, but it is there, and it is driving you a little crazy.

Yeah, I know. I get that feeling sometimes too.

It is often mistaken as unhappiness, fatigue, depression, or being stuck in a rut. Many people will go off and do wild vacations or try things they would never try in a million years just to see if those activities settle the strange, inexplicable emptiness they feel inside.

When they return to the real world, though, the problem is still there, still nagging at them.

Maybe they think they didn’t go “extreme” enough and will push themselves harder. Or maybe they take it in a totally different direction and put more time into meditation, or even trying to manifest happiness in their lives.

Sound familiar?

Or do you have it under control? I’m guessing since you’re still reading, you don’t. It’s okay. Neither do I.

In fact, neither do most people.

So, what is this mysterious thing that is pulling at you, leaving you feeling empty and unfulfilled in a life that would, from the outside, seem all but amazing? It’s the pursuit of happiness.

Before you click away from the page, thinking that this is another article about how when you stop pursuing things, that is when they come to you, don’t.

It’s not about that at all.

We are constantly presented with things that we believe will make us happy. New cars, flashier televisions, prettier women or men, houses, furniture, more money, exotic vacations, and a myriad of things that go along with that stuff.

We are pounded by books, blogs, and billboards about how we can get everything we want in life and live happier, better, and wealthier.

The simple truth is, we are so focused on getting what we want that we forget about everyone else in the world around us. And therein lies the key to that empty feeling inside.

Right now, there are people who are hungry. And not just in Africa or India. They might be within a square mile of you. There are kids who don’t have a decent place to sleep.

Let me tell you a quick story.

Recently, a friend of mine (a former high school teacher) passed away. He had been fighting leukemia and eventually cancer for a long time. He was 74 years old.

When I met him, I thought he was one of the most energetic people I’d ever come across. Of course, I was only 16 at the time. His Italian ancestry only added to the natural charisma he displayed on a daily basis.

This teacher started a program at my high school called Project 5000. It was an initiative aimed at collecting five thousand canned goods to distribute to needy families in our area. I can still remember seeing the boxes of food under the auditorium stage.

Not only did our little school of 300 kids collect five thousand cans, we collected far more. And every single year, the number grew, surpassing multiple tens of thousands every year.

Because of his efforts, many needy families got to have a few good meals around Thanksgiving, even if it was just a few.

My friend also helped out at a place called the Chambliss Home, a transitional facility for kids similar to an orphanage. He organized a Christmas program there every year so that, at least for a night, those kids could actually be kids.

Why am I telling you about this?

Because this teacher always had a smile on his face. He always had tons of energy. And because of one very important thing he told me in relation to the problem I discussed earlier.

He said that if you live your life providing a service to others, you will have the most fulfilling life possible.

And there it is. We’ve been so focused on getting what we want in this world that we forget that there are people who have desperate needs. You don’t have to look far to find them either.

They could be right up the street, in a local school, a homeless shelter, a nursing home, or any number of places.

At the moment, I work in a school that has a student body that is 100% on free and reduced lunch. Basically, that means it is a school of kids from low-income homes. I work there as a school counselor and as the boys’ soccer coach.

My commute sucks, nearly an hour each way. The hours suck (since my best energy times are not waking up at 5:30 and working until 5:00 in the afternoon).

When my friends ask me why I don’t quit or find a job closer to home at a better school, I explain to them that it is my Calcutta. While sometimes the work is not stimulating, and the kids can be a little rough around the edges, it is a place where there is a great need.

Ever since I started looking at it that way, I have been a lot happier in the rest of my life. I am more fulfilled because I know that I am providing a service to people in need and not just living for myself.

When I get home, I have more energy, a happier demeanor, and I feel like I have done something good.

The bottom line is, helping others energizes you and fills you with good feelings.

Where can you find your Calcutta? It could be as simple as donating a piece of furniture to a needy family. Or you could give a few hours a month at the local soup kitchen. Are you an expert at something that could help solve a problem for people? Find a way to do that on a semi-regular basis. It can literally be almost anything.

The point is that you serve someone. And by serving others, you will begin to notice that strange, empty feeling begin to dissipate until one day, you find yourself smiling all the time.

Photo by Shisheido USA

November 27, 2013