Glad to be of service… When I started my first corporate job at start of 2003, I used to end all my emails not with Thanks & Regards… But glad to be of service used to appear as the last line above my name…
I don’t remember why and where I picked that up from (bi-centinnial man movie, mostly)… But I really used it as I meant it… Somehow there was always this intent to make myself be useful to my clients or colleagues… And somehow it still is…
Fast forward to end of 2018… 15 years later, I was discussing with my dad how a third or fourth cousin of mine was going to visit Singapore and the things I was guiding him with… And my dad said… “Good, keep looking for opportunities where you can be helpful to people”…
And I realised in that moment where that intent had come from… My dad didn’t give me the exact line a decade and a half ago… But the basic nature, the character has come from him…
Whole of his life he has found pleasure in helping his family and others around him… even people whom we (our family) felt do not deserve his attention… He would get involved, take stress and try to help…
I don’t know why or where these qualities have come from… Sometimes I wonder whether it’s because of our (my dad’s) very humble beginning – maybe he saw that being useful to people would result in mutual support and a respected place in the community… But then I observe that he isn’t even expecting any returns… In terms of support or explicit recognition…
To my good luck, later he himself elaborated… Maybe he sensed the questions in my mind… He said, when you help people, they remember how you were there for them when they needed you… And that’s how you build relationships and a community… And trust me, genuine people themselves don’t want to be a burden on anyone… So when someone has reached out, do the best you can – you will not get many chances to be useful in someone’s life as such…
And I know how true it is… For giving my CPA exams, I went and stayed with a very distant relative of mine in US… Travelling alone to US – both for the first time – travelling alone and international… At the age of 23… After having spent an amount that was quite a bit for us at that time… How we wouldn’t have done that if we didn’t have the confidence that came from knowing that someone whom even if we have never met but is from our community will be there to host me… And how not only did they host me for a week, but also got their friends to host me for a week more as I appeared for my exam from Detroit, Michigan while they stayed in Cleveland, Illinois… And I have not had the chance to even meet both of those families after that…
My dad shared how he himself was helped to relocate to Mumbai from his small village by his uncle who hosted him for a week in a 10 x 16 feet apartment where his uncle already had 6 family members of his own…
There are innumerable instances each one of us has in our own lives where people have helped, made a huge difference by their support… And how lucky we feel to have had them in our life…
This isn’t about gratitude though… A seperate small post of it is found here…
It’s more about how nice you yourself can feel when you know that you are giving back… That you are useful… That how being helpful to others brings meaning to your own life…
It’s pretty selfish though if you think about it… If you really want others to be happy, you should never want them to need your help… Never have them get into such situations… For otherwise, what is this but not another selfish need to become a hero… And to be one you want someone to be the damsel in distress… That’s not truly noble… Just selfish…
My mom says almost everytime we speak… God has blessed my kids with good health, wealth and good family… May you guys need nothing, but if you ever do, please know Vaibhav that we are always there for you… She is so pure… She first counts the blessings, then she wishes for a self fulfilled life… And then if all vanish or fail… She offers her unconditional support that gives meaning to her life… At the end… Even in the semantics of her wishes, she has placed something that is the only meaning in her life last…
There are so many personal things I can keep sharing… But will keep it for some other blog…
Coming back though… There is a thin line between being useful and being taken advantage of or being used… Maybe they are just dependant really on your expectations or conditions you keep to help… If you ain’t expecting anything or haven’t kept any conditions to help, you will not find being used ever… For how can one ‘use’ you in the way the term is used if you only give what you can without any conditions or returns expectations… Think about it…
But that’s utopian… We expect basic decency and decorum… we expect people to not be leeches…
However that being said it is a blessing to find opportunities to find yourself being of service to someone’s life… Bastardizing from Richard Realf’s poem Indirection… More than the hand that receives, joys are to the blessed arms of the giving…
Inside VG... 