Dec
12 Gifts for Christmas: Service
If you're new here, check out the Best of Balanced Life Center and be sure to subscribe to receive the latest updates via email or RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
How quickly time passes! It’s already December and the season of gifts, generosity, and cheer is upon us. I love Christmas. Despite the level of consumerism, I love taking the time to pick out the perfect gift that’s just right for a loved one. The gift that lets them know that I know, understand, and treasure them.
Do you have a gazillion people on your list that you’d like to give gifts? You don’t know what the perfect thing will be. During this series, I’ll share a few ideas that won’t cost much, but might mean the world to someone. It will warm your heart and theirs.
The first gift is service.
As I mentioned in the 2 posts Serving Others Serves You and Serving Yourself Serves Others, the act of service has many benefits. Among them are the opportunities that open themselves up to you as you share an activity with other people, the sense of gratitude and joy that comes from helping someone else, and building your community. Service helps you to gain perspective on your life as well as keep you in the present moment.
Service can be as elaborate as using one of your skills to help an organization, or it can be as simple as taking a pie over to an elderly neighbor and spending the evening listening to their tales of yesteryear.
So, the first gift of Christmas is service. Your assignment: Complete one hour of service before Christmas Day.
In Spirit,
Nneka
December 3rd, 2007 at 9:35 am
I wholeheartedly agree - service is beneficial to the community as well as to the self.
I’m lucky because my work has a very generous community service option for its employees. Upon approval of the project, up to four hours of the work week can be spent towards community service. Since my company is in medical software, my project is to help provide free software to free clinics.
It’s helpful to have a service project that also aligns with your interests and your strengths. It’s more fun and it doesn’t feel like work!
December 3rd, 2007 at 1:16 pm
Al, that’s fantastic. More companies should do that. It probably does a wallop for morale and it helps people gain skills that they might not have otherwise gotten on the job.
December 16th, 2007 at 4:58 am
[...] Speaking of the season, Nneka of Balanced Life Center is giving us some ideas for gifts to give the person who has everything. So far, she’s told us about Service and the benefits it brings to both the server and the one who serves; Hugs (there’s nothing wrong with a man hug!); and Forgiveness, with the reminder that even if you are forgiving another, you benefit the most. [...]