This morning on my way to drop my daughter off at school, she requested that we listen to our “Happy Melodies” playlist on my Spotify account. It’s a bunch of silly songs that make me laugh or remind me of my happier childhood memories. These songs can brighten up even my worse day because they are just so upbeat and fun. One of the songs on the playlist happens to be “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the Beast. As I was listening to the lyrics on our ride, I realized how profound one verse in the middle of the song is:
“Life is so unnerving
For a servant who’s not serving
He’s not whole without a soul to wait upon
Ah, those good old days when we were useful (hey Cogsworth)
Suddenly those good old days are gone
Too long we’ve been rusting
Needing so much more than dusting
Needing exercise, a chance to use our skills!
Most days we just lay around the castle
Flabby, fat and lazy
You walked in and oops-a-daisy!”
As I’ve been feeling a deep desire lately to be of service to others, the universe confirms. As I’ve mentioned, God is always talking, we just have to open our eyes, ears, & body to what’s around us and tune in. When we aren’t using our life, knowledge, and skills to serve others we begin to deteriorate. Recall the beast’s castle before Belle decided to stay and the castle had a guest to serve. It was dark, scary, deteriorating, dusty, and ominous. Many of us are like that castle. We haven’t yet realized where or how we were intended to serve the world and therefore are rusting away in depression, anxiety, purposelessness and stagnation.
As the song says, “too long, we’ve been rusting needing so much more than dusting.” Some of us are doing the bare minimum in our lives… just enough to make it look good, but not really doing what we could be to serve. We are simply “dusting” not cleaning the floors or scrubbing the walls and windows… just “keeping things tidy.” We get up, we go to jobs we aren’t passionate about, put in our time, get our paycheck, go to bed, wake up, do it all again. While we are serving our boss, clients, company, and coworkers while employed regardless of whether we love our jobs, we certainly aren’t serving in the capacity we were made to. In other words, it’s not “service with a smile,” which can feel really unnerving within our soul. Whenever we have that “unnerved” feeling, it usually means that we aren’t in the “right” situation for us. It isn’t the right “fit” and our soul knows it. While I’m big on changing your mindset to enjoy life more and a large part of working for progress requires that you shift your perception, there are also times where I do believe that changing your situation/work helps to achieve that shift in perception. Alternately, the unnerved feeling can also mean you’re leaving something on the table that you could be doing and not giving it your best.
Some of us are merely “dusting” in our relationships. We’re there and spending time with someone, but we aren’t putting full effort into making it the best relationship we can. We aren’t invested or committed to doing whatever it takes to bring out the best in the other person we’ve chosen to spend our time with. We do enough to maintain the relationship, but we aren’t actively working on growing it and making it as fruitful as it can be. We’re not going out of our way to make the other’s life better for having shared it with us. We aren’t invested in growing ourselves so that we have more to offer the person who has chosen to be with us. We’re simply maintaining the status quo and believing that is enough. We’re just cozying up most days as we “lay around the castle” and calling it a relationship. Again… not “service with a smile” or “service” with a capital “S.”
We give life a small portion of what we’re capable and then we ask life to give us everything. We laisse around the castle barely lifting a finger, except to dust every so often, and call it a life. I wonder what would happen if we decided to give it our all. I wonder what would happen if we decided to Service everyone we came in contact with, with a smile. I’m beginning to believe that this is the key to life. Give everything you are made of to life and love, life and love will give everything and more to you.
““Life is so unnerving for a servant who’s not serving. He’s not whole without a soul to wait upon”
I’ve noticed as I’ve started using what I’ve learned in my own spiritual journey to help others, my life feels fuller and richer. At times when I’ve lost site of this project, I’ve begun feeling less “whole” and that nagging feeling of “something’s missing” has returned. In times where I’ve stopped doing what calls to me in service of others and brought the focus on “me,” I’ve seen a difference in my well-being. It’s selfish to serve. When I do this work, I feel wonderful. When I don’t, I feel less wonderful. When I share myself with others, I feel good. When I isolate, I feel less good. It’s the way we were designed. We all have seeds within us that need to be planted while we’re alive and it’s only when we are planting that we harvest the good stuff like joy, peace, fulfillment, excitement, etc. in life.
After all, “Soup du jour, hot hors d’oeuvres… Why, we only live to serve”
How are you serving? What seeds are you planting? Where could you give more to life? What skills, abilities, and interests are you keeping for yourself instead of sharing with others? If you know it, someone out there needs it…