Live for Others

Happiness. Peace. Love.

What brings you happiness in life? Like real, genuine happiness? When do you feel at peace? Have ever even felt at peace? What about love? What do you love? What is love?

Life.

I just watched Eat.Pray.Love. and now I'm sitting here thinking and reflecting on what makes me happy, what brings me peace, and what love is. My answer, I've concluded, to all the above is: life. But in order to have life, you must live.

So how do you live? For others...but also for yourself.

Now I'm only 22, I don't have experience. I'm not wise. I have lots to learn about virtually everything on the face of this beautiful planet. But I feel like when it comes to living, I've learned a lot...especially in the recent past.

I have learned that one of the greatest ways to make yourself happy is to make others happy. I saw a quote somewhere, who knows where, I'm always looking for quotes, but anywho, I saw this quote: "Only a life lived for others is a life worth while." That's Einstein....the guy knew his stuff. Life is so much fuller when we learn to live for others.

I think people can be so selfish. I know there are times where I have definitely been selfish. Everyone has selfish moments, but I feel like society in general has become too selfish. America is a very individualistic society; we are constantly told to make our own decisions, think for ourselves, be ourselves, fend for ourselves, yadda yadda yadda. And while all that is great and good and true, I think it's become so much of a part of society that now it's virtually the only part of our society. We focus so much on ourselves and making ourselves happy that we forget to help make others happy, and in turn we forget that making others happy makes us happy. It's a win-win situation!

I love helping others. I get so much joy bringing a smile to someone's face. That's why I've fallen in love with my job. It will be so different (and I'm worried extremely hard) to adjust to no longer being in Residence Life after this year, but I guess that's a story for another post...

For now, I'll just leave you with this: What have you done for someone else today?