OPINION
By Johnny Lawhon, Staff Reporter
Today there are many organizations that exist to help the less fortunate where individuals can serve others. These lead me to question what service is to me. Through my life experiences I came to believe in “selfless service.” I volunteer and expect nothing in return, not even self-promotion.
When I see people volunteer for personal gain it makes me sad. I am at my best when I’m being selfless. If I were to boast about how I’ve helped others, or use service experiences to further myself in personal goals, I would be behaving selfishly.
Serving others is supposed to be humbling, where I take time out of my day to help people. Serving others can look like opening a door for someone, or doing hard, exhausting labor for someone who can’t do it them self.
When I run for service positions, I choose to do it because I believe I can truly help, not to gain recognition. In these situations, it is important to be a good example and stand on personal principles. Taking a stand and sticking to your principles is a great show of leadership in a crowd.
Now that I’ve listed a few examples of what serving means to me, I challenge everyone to ask themselves what being of service means to you, and where in your life can you act selflessly? One act of kindness can make our dark world that much better and lead others to do the same. When a person sees another person being kind, or have someone help them without expecting anything in return, it can make that person want to the pay that kindness forward. We live in a world where negative things happen every day, but one selfless act can change this, and this process can begin with you.
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