Service is one of Integral Life's core values. The integral stage of human development is marked by psychologists as a worldview of abundance, and during this stage the compelling motivation to serve others is significant. We want to help people grow into greater pastures of freedom, love, understanding, and connection. We want to have a lot of fun and laugh a lot. We want to help people see amazing opportunities in difficult problems confronting the human race. We want to help people understand the bright hope that lies at every frontier of human evolution.
How do you incorporate service into your life? When is it awesome, and when is it taxing? Has the Integral community helped you better understand your own service in the world?
Approximately 8 years ago, wth great learning anxiety, I installed a software package called FRONTPAGE to learn how to make my own website. I am self employed with a marketing budget limited to software and webhosting only. I did not know anyone who was a web developer willing to provide some help and quickly found the manuals to be useless. Then I stumbled upone what i would later discover to be a wonderful example of an online learning and caring community as well as a knowledge content management site of sorts. The www.outfront.net forum accepted questions from neubies and the skilled alike. Everyone was encouraged to answer questions posted about the troublesome new FRONTPAGE software to the best of their ability. The forum rule was that if someone helped you to learn something new, grow the community by turning around and help someone else by answering questions. It seemed that web world gurus and geniuses were part of the gang that hung out at the forum while Frontpage was still product on the shelf (Microsoft has since discontinued it) and I often wondered what they got in return for offering their valuable advice that others might pay thousands to receive. They all operated anonamously for the most part. I am sure they gave me far more than I was ever able to give back at that forum.
However, because of the amazing skills I learned from the generosity of strangers, I am able to give back considerably to my own professional group sometimes with great fulfillment and other times with a low ebb of energy. My duties as a board member have stretched to volunteer webmaster and I have developed and now manage 3 sites as a volunteer. But one in particular gives me great pleasure. The site provides a place where any of the healers in the group may offer a free weekly group session online. The program is interactive in that participants can make direct submissions, record results in an online journal, blog, and do a number of things that makes the event more personal. The experience for the volunteer healer is also streamlined and assists them in really focusing on the work they are doing rather than getting bogged down in technology challenges. While what I have offered to the group is far more than they could ever do on their own or pay for for that matter, I get great delight in seeing the co-operation of a group of 50 or more self employed healers world wide, come together for a common public cause and over 1500 or so people well served as a result. The web service is now mostly automated so that each person doing their small part creates an awesome effect for the group as a whole. It is win/win/win on many levels. I find this very gratifying and humbling at the same time when I remember that a guy somewhere in New Zealand, patiently answered my neubie questions about data bases and session variables until everypage worked and that his reward was that I 'got it'.
The taxing part comes from colleauges who question me about doing so much for 'free'. I call it service as working together for a common good builds everyone's business, but i notice that others in my professional group won't so much as consider a short term project if they don't get paid. My integral awareness says, okay, they are in a different place. So I am exploring the possiblity that perhaps I am doing too much for the group. Perhaps a period of doing less will actually be more in the long term.
Comments welcomed! --
"All that matters is what we do for each other" - Lewis Carroll
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Reflections on Incorporating Service
Posted November 20th, 2008 by Carolyn WinterApproximately 8 years ago, wth great learning anxiety, I installed a software package called FRONTPAGE to learn how to make my own website. I am self employed with a marketing budget limited to software and webhosting only. I did not know anyone who was a web developer willing to provide some help and quickly found the manuals to be useless. Then I stumbled upone what i would later discover to be a wonderful example of an online learning and caring community as well as a knowledge content management site of sorts. The www.outfront.net forum accepted questions from neubies and the skilled alike. Everyone was encouraged to answer questions posted about the troublesome new FRONTPAGE software to the best of their ability. The forum rule was that if someone helped you to learn something new, grow the community by turning around and help someone else by answering questions. It seemed that web world gurus and geniuses were part of the gang that hung out at the forum while Frontpage was still product on the shelf (Microsoft has since discontinued it) and I often wondered what they got in return for offering their valuable advice that others might pay thousands to receive. They all operated anonamously for the most part. I am sure they gave me far more than I was ever able to give back at that forum.
However, because of the amazing skills I learned from the generosity of strangers, I am able to give back considerably to my own professional group sometimes with great fulfillment and other times with a low ebb of energy. My duties as a board member have stretched to volunteer webmaster and I have developed and now manage 3 sites as a volunteer. But one in particular gives me great pleasure. The site provides a place where any of the healers in the group may offer a free weekly group session online. The program is interactive in that participants can make direct submissions, record results in an online journal, blog, and do a number of things that makes the event more personal. The experience for the volunteer healer is also streamlined and assists them in really focusing on the work they are doing rather than getting bogged down in technology challenges. While what I have offered to the group is far more than they could ever do on their own or pay for for that matter, I get great delight in seeing the co-operation of a group of 50 or more self employed healers world wide, come together for a common public cause and over 1500 or so people well served as a result. The web service is now mostly automated so that each person doing their small part creates an awesome effect for the group as a whole. It is win/win/win on many levels. I find this very gratifying and humbling at the same time when I remember that a guy somewhere in New Zealand, patiently answered my neubie questions about data bases and session variables until everypage worked and that his reward was that I 'got it'.
The taxing part comes from colleauges who question me about doing so much for 'free'. I call it service as working together for a common good builds everyone's business, but i notice that others in my professional group won't so much as consider a short term project if they don't get paid. My integral awareness says, okay, they are in a different place. So I am exploring the possiblity that perhaps I am doing too much for the group. Perhaps a period of doing less will actually be more in the long term.
Comments welcomed! --
"All that matters is what we do for each other" - Lewis Carroll