Author's note: I am a
compulsive advice-giver-always have been. When my own son was in high
school, he wasn't interested in his old man's advice so I wrote it down in the
hope that he might change his mind one day. What follows is one piece of
that advice. I trust it applies to all of us, regardless of age.
I slept and dreamed that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted, and behold, service was joy.
—Rabindranath
Tagore
We talked earlier about making yourself useful. Here’s
another way to put it: serve others.
In his audio program Lead
the Field, Earl Nightingale makes the point that the extent of your success
will be in direct proportion to the extent of your service to others. Think
about this for a moment, and you’ll see that it makes perfect sense.
If an organization had an employee who did nothing—just sat
around playing Solitaire all day—that employee wouldn’t last very long. He or
she would be dead weight. On the other hand, an employee who accomplished twice
as much as the average worker would be considered indispensable, and would
likely receive a higher paycheck and faster promotions than the average.
Employees will sometimes say, “They can’t expect me to do
that extra work,” or “That’s not in my contract.” Then they complain that
they’re not paid enough or are not appreciated. But they’re getting just what
they deserve; to expect more is to deny reality.
It’s a pretty simple concept: you can’t expect something for
nothing. You wouldn’t expect to be hired to manage a large corporation straight
out of school; you’ve done nothing to earn it. By the same token, you can’t
expect a big raise or promotion without making a sufficient contribution to
deserve such a reward.
While all human beings have equal value as persons, some
clearly have skills, training, and experience that are more valuable than
others. One doesn’t make it into this group right away; it usually takes years
of concentrated effort to get there. These valuable people are in great demand
precisely because they are so rare. As a result, they usually command higher
financial rewards for their work.
But
money is by no means the only reward to be had from work—indeed, it’s probably
less important than the personal fulfillment derived from a job well done. A
fat paycheck is a hollow reward if it isn’t accompanied by a sense of
accomplishment and the satisfaction that you are making the world better
through your work. So embrace the idea of service. That’s where the real
rewards are. .
