Fix Hopelessness With Service

As much as we’d like to get everything we ever want right when we want it, that’s not how life works. And it’s probably for the best because we learn so much more in the process than in the attainment. 

Life is going to throw some punches. We work hard for a long time and get overlooked for that promotion we genuinely feel like we earned. We experience a personal injury, or have a chronic condition that makes life physically painful. We have a new idea that we’re really excited about and the people you share it with shut it down, telling us that we can’t pull it off or it’s not going to work.  

When life dishes us discouraging, inspiration-draining moments, we start to feel bad for ourselves. And it’s in those moments where we need to build up the habit to get out and serve. This is something I learned from Tim Tebow who has a policy with a friend where he doesn’t make a dramatic response to adversity until he’s gone out to serve. And here’s why it works.

First, being of service to others makes things no longer about you. The offense that we feel and the injustice we received can linger in our minds forever. But when you go out with the intention to help others, you make your mind think about the well-being of someone else and it makes you think more objectively about your own.

That’s because of the second reason, which is that service provides perspective. We naturally want to play the comparison game, and when we go to serve people who need more help than we do, we realize that we don’t have it that bad. But more importantly, when you can reject the comparison game, you gain insight into the breadth of problems you could be facing. You gain insight into the sea of all that could be wrong, and how you’re only experiencing the tiniest sliver of it. It helps you scale down the perception of your problems.

And last, you get a natural helper’s high. Ultimately the best way to work through negative emotions is to begin to cultivate positive ones. And one of the fastest ways to positively reset your physiology is to go help others. So being of service helps your body override feelings of discouragement and replace them with feelings of hope.

That’s why there’s the expression “When you need help, get helpful.” The fastest way to get anything is to give it away.

And as for being of service, Martin Luther King Jr says “Everybody can be great because everybody can serve.” So let’s find a way to be great by being of service more often."