To Serve Man

First, about the title.  It’s inspired by an episode of The Twilight Zone television series which first aired in 1962.  Have you seen it?  If not, spoiler alert, I’m going to give away the ending which I have never forgotten because of the stunning plot twist.
 
To summarize, a race of alien’s lands on earth during a time of crisis, so like any time in our past or present I guess.  Their leader stated that they were here to solve all of our problems, to create a utopia. How nice of them.  Oh, he also gifted us a book written in their language for our reading pleasure. 

A cryptographer named Patty, translated the book title to be, “To Serve Man.”  This combined with a successful polygraph test and following through on their promises led to complete faith and trust in our new found benevolent friends. In fact, people volunteered in droves to take a trip to their planet which sounded like heaven.
 
All was going fine until Patty translated the rest of the book and discovered that it was a … wait for it … COOKBOOK!  Zoinks!!!
 
What does this have to do with anything relevant to our cause?
 
Well, I recently wrote about strategies to attaining a state of lasting joy.  One for them was acting our way to joy.  And further, we can ABC our way to joy through our Attitude, Behavior, and Choices, all of which are within our control.
 
And it all starts with attitude since it drives our behavior. I suggested some attitudes that would serve us well in attaining and maintaining our joy.  They were; gratitude, faith, understanding and forgiveness, appreciation, and of course joy.
 
But I left a big one off the list accidentally, on purpose.  In fact, after being grateful it is the fastest joy producer there is.  Can you guess what it is?  Surprise, it’s to serve man, and woman of course.  It’s to be of service to others.  It’s in His book, The Good Book!
 
Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 1 Peter 4:10
 
I actually see serving others as a commandment.  It seems a logical consequence of observing The Greatest Commandment to Love God and Neighbors.  How do we show our love?  Through our actions.  Through our service.
 
The interesting thing about serving others is that you always seem to get back more than you give.  Maybe not right away, and maybe not by the person served, but something good eventually comes your way.  It seems to be an unwritten law of the universe.
 
But the one thing that nearly always happens right away is that you feel good about what you have done.  It brings you joy.  Especially if you are expecting nothing in return.
 
I had a couple of revelations a while back.  I always laugh when I have them in a “no duh” kind of way.  Like, how didn’t you figure this out a long time ago?!  Anyway, here they are:

1. The best way to think our way to joy is through gratitude, and;
2. The best way to act our way to joy is in service to others. 

Seriously, if we just focused on doing these two things every day we would be perpetually joyful, even in those unavoidably tough times.  Be grateful, serve others.  That’s it.  Well, add having faith in God to take care of everything else.  Yeah, now that’s a winning formula to lasting joy.
 
I’m reminded of the movie The Bucket List where the main characters are sitting looking at the pyramid’s in Egypt.  One explains to the other that the ancient Egyptians believed that they would be asked two questions before being allowed to enter heaven.  Have you found joy in your life?  Has your life brought joy to others?  Who knows, maybe these are the questions…
 
I believe we can enable ourselves to answer “yes” to both questions through our service to others.  That is, we can both find joy and bring joy through what we do for each other.
 
We can start by remembering our ABC’s.  First, adopt an attitude of unconditional joyfulness.  Let’s make the choice to be a source of positivity to all of those we encounter.  Yes, let’s be a beacon of light for anyone who might need it, which let’s face it, is all of us.  This attitude will drive our behavioral choices which will bring joy to others.
 
Commit to doing something nice for someone every day.  We can begin in our own households since we already do this naturally.  Wake up smiling and saying a kind word.  Be encouraging.  Give a compliment.  Be a source of positivity.  Be present and attentive.  Listen.  Simple, yet highly effective joy enhancers.
 
Then build momentum from there.  Go out into the world and do the same.  Make eye contact.  Say hello.  Start a conversation.  Make people wonder what you have to be so happy about.  Your positive outlook will be infectious. 
 
Do things that make you feel good and you will keep doing them.  And the things that make you feel good likely make others feel good as well.  So it should be easy to figure out what to do.  Just treat others as you’d like to be treated.  There is something golden in that rule:-) And here’s a good reminder:
 
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” ― Maya Angelou
 
There, that should give us all something to work on for the next, well, rest of our lives. Just keep the greatest commandment and the golden rule in mind and we will both find and bring the joy this world desperately needs.