Duty to God, Duty to Others, Duty to Self

The spirit of service. Everyone knows about the spirit of service. Others before self, but when the situation arises will anyone be ever ready to exercise what they felt was their belief in life? As a scout, we all understand the meaning of Duty to God, Duty to Others and Duty to Self. All 3 are equally important and interlinked.

By helping others, we are not just fulfilling our duty to others but also our Duty to God, for it is truly what God wants us all to do. To love your neighbour and serving others is an act of love. Thus when we fulfilled these two, we would have fulfilled our duty to self too. I understood all these really well and I would say that it is my goal in life to be someone who can make a difference in the lives of others, so that in my limited capacity hopefully the world can be a tiny bit better because I lived.

I really want to serve and let service be a focus in my life. However, service is not just about those big community projects, giving up your seats to the elderly, helping a pregnant woman to carry stuff and listening out to an emo friend. It has to go beyond that. And this is when I discovered how ugly I am. Of course I know I am not perfect at all, not righteous at all. But now I am even more ashame of myself simply because I had fallen short of the true spirit of service by so much.

Just yesterday, a group of primary school boys were attempting to climb out of the school gate to retrieve their soccer ball that had rolled out of the school compound to the middle of the road. I stopped them from climbing out of the gate cause it’s so dangerous. But I had chose not to go and helped them retrieve their ball because it is simply so silly. The cars are just flying pass the ball and what if I get knock down by the car? No I don’t have that much courage to dash across the road and get the ball like dash from the incredibles. So then, desperate, one of the bigger boys ran out of the school side gate and dashed across the road to pick the ball up and dashed back to the school. Yes, I got really worried about his safety and didn’t walk off till I see him safe in one piece back into the school. But shouldn’t I be the one who go get the ball for them? I would have a better judgement than them. Even if I hadn’t gone to get the ball, after seeing the boy dashed out of the road, why didn’t I rushed out to drag him back to safety? Just because it’s for a silly cause and so I had just simply chose not to react? Ok, I am really ashamed and upset with myself. And truly like what Sherman said, what if the boy really got knocked down and died. Will I be able to bear all that guilt?

True service. Others before self. The meaning of it is so much deeper than I had thought. It seemed like I didn’t know what is service afterall. When placed in situation as such, will you be willing to give up your life even for a fool? Will I choose to react the next time? I guess after this incident, I will.