A Good Turn Daily

No man stands so straight as when he stoops to help a boy. ~Knights of Pythagoras

Have you ever wondered why individuals like Mother Theresa and the Dalai Lama encourage us to "be of service" to others and live that in their own daily lives? What is so wonderful about being of service?

Love is an action word, and it's never more active than when you are generating it and giving it away. We are all capable of making the world a better place, even if we have doubts and fears that seem to limit us. Our being of service doesn't have to hit the front page of the newspapers. It can be as small and unseen as picking up trash on the street when you see it. You get to feel good within yourself. No one pats you on the back or announces the good you do to others.

If you can share these concepts with your children early in their lives, they will become the core of improving the world they live in. Helping their brothers and sisters or their parents can be a beginning to teach them selflessness and love.

Some of us think we need tons of money to create huge projects and absorb lots of hours. No, much of the being of service happens in a matter of a few moments. If you want to make the world a better place for you're having lived here, you can do dozens of tiny small deeds as they show up in your life. You can be of service by offering an arm to someone stepping off a bus. You can be of service by letting someone enter the bank ahead of you. You can be of service by letting someone with only a few items to purchase get in front of you in the grocery store. It's in small deeds that being of service become significant. When we help others through our love, attention and service, we help the world in our small, everyday occurrences.

We can do something as small as thinking a positive thought and point it toward someone who needs it. If you see a child struggling with his parent in public, you can send them each a loving thought of harmony and peace. Trust me, those kinds of thoughts are gratefully received. And you can share a knowing smile to a mom struggling to maintain several squirming children. We can each improve our homes, our places of work, our communities and on out into our country, if we drop a few coins into a charitable cause, if we consciously look into others' eyes and give them a smile. We will see more opportunities as we progress in this. A UPS truck driver taught me how to acknowledge another by bowing his head in my direction as a way to say "Hello." I pass it along to others.

We improve the entire universe as we learn how to be of service because we become more informed. When we share our information, as I am doing here, we create a positive vibration that then serves as the motivation for more positive change. And if you will send this article to your friends who are not on our list, and they will send it to their friends, these ideas will become viral!

No one know better than those of us who live in the Middle east that selfless and helpful deeds can help us exercise some degree of control over a world that can seem chaotic at times. Even the smallest of such deeds is a demonstration of the fact that we are capable of changing the world in a positive way. There has been a great deal of negative energy and it gets fed by the suffering, pain, and close-mindedness we are regularly exposed to, but we can counteract it in a constructive way by thinking and acting unselfishly whenever we see an opportunity to inject some "being of service."

Being of service helps the whole world and it often takes no more than a fleeting moment, accomplished by even the busiest of people effortlessly. When you make a habit of love in action, these small attentions create broader benefits for the entire world. Once a day, you can affect reality, and you can reap the rewards of knowing that you are making the world a better place, service by service.