If you love your friends, you will serve your friends.
If you love community, you will serve your community
If you love money, you will serve your money.
And if you only love yourself, you will only serve yourself, and you will only have yourself"
-Stephen Colbert, Northwestern University Commencement Speech, 2011
At our staff meeting last Thursday, the Resident Assistants, Desk Manager, and Community Director of Suss got together to talk about our journey toward and through education. For me, this was an opportunity to share my beliefs about what service means. If service is love made visible, then we will always serve what we love.
It was also an opportunity to talk about how we can serve. As undergraduates, we occupy a particular space--one fraught with opportunity, confusion, and dotted with individuals who are working to fully understand disciplines and them-selves.
It was also an opportunity to talk about how we can serve. As undergraduates, we occupy a particular space--one fraught with opportunity, confusion, and dotted with individuals who are working to fully understand disciplines and them-selves.
It is from this perspective that I look at service. Many hear that word and think of volunteering--going to a soup kitchen, for example, and working with those in need. That service has profound importance, but as students we can contribute even more.
Our journey through UMBC is gifting us with skills and knowledge that others will never get the chance to have. If you're here to study biological sciences, then you are working to master the discipline of biology. Use that. If you are here to study mechanical engineering, how can social value be created through that process? Who's lives can be bettered, and how can you contribute to that?
Because that's what it comes down to. We're all here to allow people to become healthier and happier, to breathe more easily, to live more fully, and to love without restraint. If that's not the purpose, then why are we really here? Well,like every decision, coming here is a product of serving what we love. If we love money, then we are here to learn how to better serve our money.
But if we love others, if we are here to serve others, then we chose to go to college so that we may learn how to better serve others. And if that's true, then we are becoming better Biology students, better Engineering students, better Political Science students in order to better serve others through the skills that a degree symbolizes. The very process of getting that degree can be service, too. We can serve others through the very means of getting that education if only we choose to. Because service is not an act, it is a choice to be made every day.
Because that's what it comes down to. We're all here to allow people to become healthier and happier, to breathe more easily, to live more fully, and to love without restraint. If that's not the purpose, then why are we really here? Well,like every decision, coming here is a product of serving what we love. If we love money, then we are here to learn how to better serve our money.
But if we love others, if we are here to serve others, then we chose to go to college so that we may learn how to better serve others. And if that's true, then we are becoming better Biology students, better Engineering students, better Political Science students in order to better serve others through the skills that a degree symbolizes. The very process of getting that degree can be service, too. We can serve others through the very means of getting that education if only we choose to. Because service is not an act, it is a choice to be made every day.
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