Lesson #7- Serve others and you will find happiness

Lesson #7 – Serve others and you will find happiness. If you don’t know where to start, start by listening to them.
from Lessons from My Father

”It’s not about you”

I don’t know who said that first, but it’s a pretty common saying. I find myself repeating it often. But in our world today, so much pressure we hear is that it is about us. Whether it’s the ads on our social media feed that talk about success, career, buying a new car, a new home, living longer, luxury purchases, or luxury vacations – the messaging is about finding happiness. Or the messaging is about lack of health, depression, sleepless nights; also medicating your way to happiness.

My father taught me that we are happier when we are serving others, and he spent his lifetime doing that. He took great joy in working with people, and focusing on their needs. As a pastor for 30+ years, he had plenty of opportunities to serve, and in retirement he kept on going. He loved being with other people, helping with their projects or just talking with them and finding out their stories.

Why are we happy when we help others?

Whey does helping others make us happy? Well, a simple Google search will tell you that answer. Here’s the top result…

Altruistic behaviour releases endorphins in the brain and boosts happiness for us as well as the people we help. Studies have shown that giving money away tends to make people happier than spending it on themselves.
https://actionforhappiness.org/10-keys-to-happier-living/do-things-for-others#

Or how about Time Magazine?

“…Through fMRI technology, we now know that giving activates the same parts of the brain that are stimulated by food and sex. Experiments show evidence that altruism is hardwired in the brain—and it’s pleasurable. Helping others may just be the secret to living a life that is not only happier but also healthier, wealthier, more productive, and meaningful.
Time Magazine: The Secret to Happiness is Helping Others, by Jenny Santi

I can keep going. There are no shortage of great quotes and scientific research about helping others and the connection with finding happiness and greater quality of life. It’s not new at all, and it is so true.

If this is so true, and so well known, why then do we all struggle with finding happiness? Why do most people struggle with depression in their lives? Why do some take their own lives?

Yeah. Hold on, this is a tough subject.

The Funk of Life

Life today for many features a crazy routine of things to keep us busy. Often, busy pursuing things for ourselves. Education, career & jobs, sports all seem to drive on individual performance. Even in team sports and corporate America, it comes down to individualized metrics of success. It’s your batting average that get’s measured. Corporations invest heavily in measurement of employee productivity, “It’s about hitting your metrics,” I was once told when I was part of the corporate juggernaut.

It’s About the Numbers Today

Life today is about the numbers for a lot of people. It’s how much money they make, how fancy their car is. Vacations, kids scores in school. What school their kid goes to. And society is largely in pursuit of better numbers. And we are busy in the pursuit of our own numbers. We are obsessed over it.

Busy is the Opposite of Helping Others

I believe that most people are too busy to help others, and it’s in this “busyness” that the funk of life sets in. Going from one day to the next, working at the job, coming home, watching sports, binge watching shows, drinking, etc. It’s all stuff to keep us busy. It fills the time. And why do most people fill the time? I don’t know exactly, but I think it has a lot to do with being afraid of unhappiness. That if they end up not busy for too long, they get depressed. They question why they are doing what they are doing, and they don’t like the answer.

I’d Rather Serve French Fries

Since I’m writing a blog post, I can go in the weeds for a bit right? So there’s this experience from my memory that just popped in. I remember a having a profound realization when I owned my restaurant that involved my own satisfaction. At the same time I had a software business and had been operating it for 14 years. Although I was losing money in my restaurant, and getting a decent salary in my software company, I was substantially happier working in the restaurant. Why? I noticed that the time it took for me to have a positive impact on someone else was really short by comparison. In my software company, projects would take months. At the restaurant, I’d take your order and it would be ready in a few minutes. If something wasn’t right, we could fix it. And that meal usually brought happiness to those we served. It wasn’t about the money, it was about serving others.

Why Do I Do the Things I Do?

Somewhere along the way I decided that somehow I needed to figure out how I was going to help others. How I could spend my time doing just that? When I help someone else do something, learn something, share something, I really feel better. And now, most of the stuff I do involves others, and I get great satisfaction too.

Teaching Piano – Amazing feeling watching students get better. And we talk about skills they are learning, beyond the music that apply to other areas.
Teaching Jazz Improv – Love hearing what students come up with, and the confidence they gain.
Performing Music – Love making music with other musicians. We get great joy doing it together. Even more fun if someone shows up and get’s joy out of what we are playing.
Boxleys – A club that supports local musicians, and students, playing music, playing Jazz
JazzClubsNW – a Nonprofit that supports life jazz performance and education including Boxleys and festivals
Jazz & Blues Walks – festivals for music that celebrates local musicians and our community. Attendees also get alot of joy out of it.
Worship Music Leader – I love hearing people sing.
Gospel Choir Project – Singers, musicians, audience.. etc. (I need to get this going again. Stopped during Covid)
Writing , blogging, etc. – Sharing ideas with others, and hearing your feedback. Hoping that my openness will help encourage you…

I can keep going. That list was about my vocation, but their is another list…

My Walking Buddies – sometimes we talk, sometimes not
Phoning friends when I think about them, or nowadays at least texting)
Having friends over for dinner, dessert or drinks,
Going out for drinks with friends
Hiking with my brother
Just talking with my family
Seeing my mom
Just hanging out with Robyn

It seems that so much of what I do involves other people.

But I love being Alone.

My life doesn’t sound like that of an intravert does it? But the funny thing is that I love being alone. I often tell myself that I could go for days without saying a word to someone. “I’d be happy doing that”. I have many feelings every day that reinforce my belief that I’d rather be alone. I hate talking on the phone, especially if I have to make a call. It’s really hard for me. I have a lot of anxiety with each call. Often I have to come up with gimmicks to convince me to do it. I have to plan what I am going to say to start the conversation. I am often paralyzed when it comes to interacting with others. I’m the same way with email. I am paralyzed at times just repling to a simple request. I have to plan it out. Even the simplest response. “Will this be okay?” So why do I do it?

“You’ll feel better on the other side of your excuse”

Somewhere along the way I learned that I’ll feel better on the other side of my excuses. I can always come up with excuses not to help, not to call, not to spend time with other people. And the more “true” the excuse is, the better. But I value people, and I learned somewhere… that on the other side of that experience, I will feel really good about the time we have spent together.

Someone needs You

Right now, someone in your life needs you. I’m reminded of this also though my latest read of “Man’s Search for Meaning”. Frankl shares that finding someone to love, and loving them is one of the 3 keys for finding meaning, and therefore happiness in life. When we are able to stop obsessing over our own selves, and focus on someone else, amazing things happen. We were wired and engineered for this. So back to the science, back. to the sayings, “we were wired to feel good helping others”.

A Religious Conviction

My dad was a pastor, and I am a believer as well. My favorite verse in the Bible also speaks to this as well. Ephesians 2:10 says “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Pretty simple. Made to do good works.

Doing Good Works

Wouldn’t we all be better if we did good works? If we stopped obsessing over ourselves and started helping others? How much strife would end? How much suffering would cease?

Yeah but Forcing Others to Do Good Works, Doesn’t Work

Forcing someone to do good doesn’t work. There are a lot of sayings about this too. Something to the tune of “if your heart isn’t in it…” I wish we could force others to be good, do good. The only way, is to show the way, and hope they catch on. Be an example. Someone has to start the chain reaction of goodness, it might as well be you.

The End of it All

If you are like me, you have lost several friends to suicide. And each time, I wonder if there is something else I could have done to save them. If I could have helped. It it’s a tortuous chain of thoughts. For each friend, it haunts me. While I have faced depression in my own life, I have not gone that far. The thoughts that drive someone to take their own life are more than I can adequately speak to. And then there is the wave of grief it leaves for those of us left behind. If you are in this space, I encourage you to get help. If you want to just talk, let me know. Reach out.

Tired? Too Busy?

If you are like me in another way, you often get really busy and forget to look up from the todo list and help others. These aren’t good days, even if I can tick off a lot of things on my to do list. When I get to the other side of these days, they were just… tiresome.

Just Call, Just Listen

The other part of this lesson is that sometimes we get too busy to think about where to even start. The easy thing is to call someone you care about, and ask them how they are doing. Then just listen. It’s magic. Don’t fix them. Just listen. Don’t tell them what they are doing wrong. Tell them you were thinking about them, and you wanted to call and let them know that. That’s it. Listen.

Quick Tips to Wrap Up

Call or Text Someone you care about
Go for a walk with someone
Meet someone for a beverage, maybe coffee, beer, whine, whatever is appropriate
Invite someone over for dinner
Go see a show, how about a Jazz Club…

Ask them how they are doing and just listen.