Service is a Road to Happiness

“The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But…the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”
― John F. Kennedy

“Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

And here are some thoughts from a person born before these leaders.

“Happiness is not mere pleasure not the outcome of wealth. It is the result of active work rather than passive enjoyment of pleasure.”
― Robert Baden-Powell

“The most worth-while thing is to try to put happiness into the lives of others.”
― Robert Baden-Powell

“The main question of life is not ‘what can I get?’ but ‘what can I give?’.”
― Robert Baden-Powell

These are greater men than I, so I try to learn from them.   I think by putting these thoughts together that one thing I could learn is that serving others opens the opportunity to find one’s own happiness.  Also, consider this:

“But the best form of instruction of all, for a Scoutmaster to give, is by the force of example. It is essential if he is going to succeed in putting the right character into his boys that he should himself practise what he preaches. Boys are imitative, and what the Scoutmaster gives off, that they pick up and reflect.”
― Robert Baden-Powell

Perhaps we should recognise that by being in service to Scouting, we are passing that on and showing by force of example a path to the youth’s own happiness.

David White
24^th Kitchener Scout Group