A Life of Service From a Teenage Perspective

The construct of social media is changing the world at large, allowing people to connect and express themselves in entirely new ways. From a personal perspective, I’ve met thousands of new people through Global Patriot, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and even StumbleUpon. Each person, in their own unique way, has enriched my life and altered my way of thinking.

One such individual is Bud Hennekes. I encounter so many people on a daily basis that I don’t recall how I came across his blog A Boundless World, but it was probably through Twitter, as we connected in December and I do remember reading his post on How to Develop a Mission Statement that month. I was impressed with his style and sense of awareness, and that feeling continued with his post on How to Forgive Anyone in January and on The ABCs of Personal Growth in February. Based on those articles I asked Bud to write a guest post for Global Patriot on the topic of service, emphasizing our need to serve others while also serving the best interests of the planet.

A Bit About Bud Hennekes

Bud was born in California, lived in Louisiana for a bit, then 12 months in Clear Lake, Texas before moving to Holland for 3 years. From there he spent his adolescence in The Woodlands of Texas near Houston, and has lived in Shanghai for the past two years – an interesting journey for a 17 year old. I hope you enjoy what Bud has to say about the essence of service, and his own path to embracing it.

A Life of Service – by Bud Hennekes

If you were to look up service in the dictionary it would state: “the action of helping or doing work for someone.” Yet I don’t think that definition goes far enough. To me service is something more. Service is the soul of life. Without service we cannot truly live.

Albert Einstein once said, “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.”

Only through service can we truly live to our fullest potential.

What does it take to truly live?

The answer? – You must serve.

But what does it mean to serve, and how can we incorporate service into our already busy lives?

Luckily, there is no one right way to serve. In fact, there are an unlimited number of ways in which we can serve. We can serve by listening. We can serve by growing. We can serve by awakening people to their fullest potential. We can serve by understanding. We can serve by being loving human beings. We can serve by providing the basic necessities of life to those less fortunate than ourselves; giving food, shelter, and love to all those who need it.

To serve is to give.

Give. Give. Give.

When you are truly immersed in service your ego turns off, and when your ego turns off you begin to live and love. It’s unfortunate that so many people never learn to serve, for then their ego remains the centerpiece of their life, which in turn creates a life that will forever be unfulfilled.

For most of my life my purpose was to merely “survive.” I wasn’t much of a risk taker. I merely existed. I had a great life by all means. I ran cross country. I had some wonderful friends. But at the end of the day I remained asleep. Asleep with my soul dying to be heard.

Then I moved to Shanghai and experienced things that would change me forever. I was introduced to a whole new global perspective that was alien to me at the time. I slowly learned that I could make a difference. That I could change the world. In no way am I perfect, but just knowing that I matter has profoundly changed me in so many positive ways.

Going through the motions is no longer appealing to me…in fact the thought almost makes me sick. I am no longer satisfied with just being ok. I now strive for excellence. One of my favorite quotes is by Steve Prefontaine, “To give anything less is to sacrifice the gift.”

That’s what the majority of the world does, they sacrifice their gift. The sad thing is we shouldn’t. We can live the life of our dreams simply by learning to give. We must stop looking to our ego for guidance and instead look to our soul, because when our soul speaks the world listens.

I know it’s sometimes hard to comprehend that one person out of the near 7 billion on the planet can make a profound difference, but the reality of it is YOU truly can.

I am going to paraphrase one of my favorite stories of all time.

Once there was a rich business man walking on the beach. Because of the season there was an abnormal amount of starfish on the beach.

There were starfish as far as you could see.

While walking the business man noticed a small boy on the beach picking up starfish one at a time and throwing them back into the ocean.

This astonished the business man.

He approached the boy and said, “Little boy, there is no point in wasting your time. There are starfish for miles, you won’t make a difference.”

The little boy looked the business man in the eye, smiled, then picked up yet another starfish and threw him into the ocean.

The boy then replied, “To that one I did.”

For much of my life I turned away from service, because I was afraid, afraid of living to my fullest potential. I slowly began to realize that unless I began to serve a void would remain in my heart.

I hope to continue expanding my consciousness by giving more value to the world than I take away. I hope to awaken people to the potential that lies within them. I hope to love as much as humanly possible. I hope to leave a lasting impact on all whom I come in contact with. I hope to express gratitude in every act I do. I hope to live, learn and grow.

But most importantly I hope to serve humanity.

For as Marian Wright Edelman said, “Service is what life is all about.”

Are you leading a life of service, if not, why not?

Related posts that may interest you:

1. Bill McKibben – Making a Life on Planet Eaarth The last ice age ended around 13,000 years ago, allowing humankind to extend our reach across the globe and create...
2. 3rd Annual Classy Awards Ceremony The 3rd Annual Classy Awards ceremony was held on Saturday, September 17th at the San Diego Civic Theater, and with...
3. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness It’s the Fourth of July and I’ve been out in the desert near Palm Springs for a couple of days,...
4. Living Philanthropic – A Charitable Journey One of the 10 nominees for Volunteer of the Year at the 3rd Annual Classy Awards represented a different twist...