Serve Someone Else, Serve Yourself<\/p>\n
When I was writing my book, \u201cMemoirs of a Ghost,\u201d I devoted
a chapter to my \u00a0volunteer work at an AIDS hospice, something that changed my life. It was the late 1980\u2019s when testing positive for HIV was a death sentence. I lost a lot of friends. I also made some new ones. I attended a death and dying workshop and I met a man in his early thirties named Ken. He was reclining on the floor next to me, he had dark patches on his skin, he was rail thin, and I felt drawn to him. \u201cI\u2019m moving to Chris Brownlie AIDS hospice tomorrow,\u201d he asked me. \u201cWill you come visit me?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, of course,\u201d I said. But as I\u00a0stood at the\u2028front door two days later, I was paralyzed with fear. 26 beds, 26\u00a0dying men. I had signed up to volunteer but what on earth did I have to offer? Was\u00a0it even safe to be there? We knew very little about the virus at that point. The\u00a0medical community had reported that you contracted AIDS by sharing bodily\u00a0fluids like blood or semen with someone who was infected. But how could I be\u00a0sure? What if it was transmitted by touch? Or breathing the same air?<\/p>\n
I might have stood there all day if a nurse\u00a0hadn\u2019t stepped in front of me, opened the door, gestured to me and he and I\u00a0walked in together. I immediately got busy. I checked in and I started by\u00a0visiting Ken who was really happy to see me. Then I walked from room to room, holding
hands, carrying lunch trays and fluffing pillows. Somehow I knew exactly what\u00a0to do. It felt like I was moving around in an altered state with a lot of\u00a0clarity, no fear or confusion, and I did very little talking. Mostly I\u00a0listened.<\/p>\n
After eight hours, when I got back in my car and\u00a0got on the road, I felt sad but I also felt enlivened and renewed as I realized\u00a0something that has stayed with me for my entire life. You don\u2019t deserve to get\u00a0a medal for service. The doing is the reward. When you expect adoration and
complements for being there for someone, you become full of yourself. When you don\u2019t\u00a0expect anything for being there for someone, you become full of love and\u00a0satisfaction. You get a whole lot more than you ever imagined.<\/p>\n
A friend asked me if it was depressing to spend\u00a0time with dying people. \u201cNot at all,\u201d I said. \u201cI get tired but the atmosphere\u00a0is so charged with life, I stay in the moment and there\u2019s a lot I can do. I get\u00a0to leave my baggage at the door, that\u2019s a relief, and I feel inspired by these
extraordinary, vulnerable people who are facing illness and death with so much\u00a0courage.\u201d<\/p>\n
I think that being of service is a largely\u00a0misunderstood notion. First you need to know who you\u2019re serving. Yourself or\u00a0someone else? It matters because service is like a boomerang. When you toss it\u00a0out with spiritual arrogance, (look how good I am and how much I\u2019m doing for you), it flies back and hits you in the face. When you toss it out with
humility and no expectations (I see that you\u2019re in pain. What can I do to
help?), it soars directly to your heart and fills you up with love. While
you\u2019re helping someone else, you\u2019re also helping yourself.<\/p>\n
Mahatma Gandhi said, \u201cThe best way to find\u00a0yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There was a man named Jerry in the hospice, a\u00a0\u201cresident\u201d as they were called, who had AIDS and cancer. That equaled a lot of\u00a0pain. Still, he invited me to sit down and he told me what made a good\u00a0volunteer. What worked and what didn’t. I listened carefully. For him, it was
about being heard. For me, it was an education in how to be with dying people.\u00a0I paid attention to Jerry and I learned what felt good to them, like showing\u00a0respect by asking if you could come into their room. Not talking about dying\u00a0unless they brought it up. Not telling them what to do. Not pressing your\u00a0opinions on anyone. Saying what you mean and meaning what you say because your\u00a0words may be the last ones they ever hear.<\/p>\n
When Jerry asked me to light his cigarette a few\u00a0minutes later, I hesitated for a moment. Wasn\u2019t it bad for him? But I set my\u00a0opinion aside and clicked the lighter without any further hesitation. I had\u00a0heard what he said about not telling anyone what to do. He had a short time to\u00a0live so why would it matter if he had a cigarette?<\/p>\n
Alcoholics Anonymous refers to service as work\u00a0carried out for no financial reward or compensation. \u201cYou have to give it\u00a0away,\u201d they say, \u201cin order to keep it.\u201d In my experience, serving others gives my\u00a0life purpose, hope and fulfillment. It chases away loneliness and guilt. I\u2019m
not suggesting you don\u2019t take care of yourself first. And I\u2019m not suggesting that\u00a0you have to do anything large or heroic. The wonder of it all is that when you\u00a0do small things that make someone feel a little bit better, they become great\u00a0things. It’s a great gift to show someone they\u2019re not alone. It’s a great gift\u00a0to tell someone you love them. To feed someone. To ask them what they need. Andabove all else, to be quiet and attentive and just listen.<\/p>\n
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Serve Someone Else, Serve Yourself When I was writing my book, \u201cMemoirs of a Ghost,\u201d I devoteda chapter to my \u00a0volunteer work at an AIDS hospice, something that changed my life. It was the late 1980\u2019s when testing positive for HIV was a death sentence. I lost a lot of friends. I also made some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2309,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2310"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2311,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2310\/revisions\/2311"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}