The Myth That Service Has to Be Difficult and Miserable

Every Tuesday, I would dread going.

It sounds horrible, but it’s true. I was just out of college, living in downtown Portland and had all this time on my hands, so I figured I should probably make myself useful. I volunteered for an organization whose mission was to help English Language Learners achieve their GEDs.

I could speak Spanish with many of them (or at least attempt), help them with their homework, and teach them mini grammar lessons to help them pass their tests.

Photo Credit: Jakub Kadlec, Creative Commons

I promised to come once a week, and for nearly 12 months, I did. But every Tuesday, as I would walk from my full time, 9-5 job across town—heels and business casual in the backpack strapped firmly to my back and Nikes on my feet—I would talk myself through it: you can do this. It’s just three hours. You like these kids. You do.

I would stay from 5-8pm or so, and then walk home, the whole time wondering why I was such a horrible person.

I didn’t like serving. I wasn’t any good at it.

This went on for a whole year. I wondered why I hated serving so much, but I kept going. Maybe I was selfish. Maybe I was defective. Maybe I needed an attitude check. Maybe if I just kept serving, for a little bit longer—if I just kept showing up—I could change myself for the better.

Then, one day, long after I had quit my volunteer position at this organization and started at another one, I realized:

Service isn’t supposed to be miserable. It’s supposed to be fun.

I was at a summer camp when the thought popped into my mind. It was a camp I had attended as a high school student and had completely altered my life. The story is too long to share here, but something a counselor said to me was so simple and so profound for me, I believe it altered my trajectory forever.

So, I volunteered to come back as a counselor.

Counselors gave up one week of the summer for a “paycheck” that basically covered the gas to drive out to the camp, so it was essentially a volunteer position. We would go days with 2-3 hours of sleep each night, wrangling wily high school students into bed past 11pm and trying to get to bed before midnight ourselves (always failing).

We made make crafts and ate camp food and ran around like crazy people playing games and having water balloon fights and chaperoning dances each night.

By the end of the week, I would be so tired, if I started laughing (or crying) there would be no possible way I could stop. I would just get tickled about something and, within minutes, I (along with two other counselors) would be rolling around on the ground like teenagers, laughing so hard our stomachs would turn hard as rocks.

I loved going to camp. I looked forward to it every year.

It wasn’t less work than the other organization. It wasn’t less of a time commitment (it was just concentrated into one week, instead of spread out over months). The work wasn’t any more glamorous than the work I had been doing with the other students (probably less). The only difference was this:

I liked it.

And if you ask me, this is the counter-intuitive thing about service—that it’s supposed to be this big, horrible sacrifice you make; that you’re supposed to do it even when you hate doing it, because that’s what it means to be selfless.

To me, making a sacrifice like that doesn’t do anyone any good. It might appease your guilt or make you feel important for a minute, but it doesn’t really help anyone.

It’s not really service.

To me, service is about finding where your gifts are, your passions are, where your time is already being dedicated, and learning to give those gifts, give those passions, give that time with abandon.

When you find that sweet spot, you don’t want to hold back. You don’t want to stop giving. You can’t stop giving.

It feels so good.

For this reason, the way I serve has changed over the years, as I change.

When I was younger, I used to babysit (sometimes for pay, often for free). When I was a school teacher, I would stay after school and help my students who didn’t have anyone at home to help them with homework. When I was working in a restaurant, I would often invite my co-workers out to coffee or dinner to ask them about their lives.

These days, my husband and I open our home all the time to guests who are traveling through, or who simply a place to rest. We are constantly serving people.

It just doesn’t look like service. It looks like friendship.

Of course, there is sacrifice in service. It’s not always easy. In the beginning, I always feel a little bit of resistance and service, in any capacity, seems to have this way of pushing me to my limits.

But I always gain more from service than I lose. I never regret it, never wish I could take it back. I don’t have to talk myself into it again and again.

If you feel like you haven’t found your sweet spot for service yet, don’t panic, and don’t worry there is something wrong with you. There’s not. Keep trying things. Keep experimenting, keep exploring your passions and desires. Eventually, you’ll find a way to serve that doesn’t feel quite like you’re serving.

You’ll find a way to give that makes you feel like you’re actually receiving more in return.

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