Seek What They Sought

Dec 4, 2011

People routinely make exceptions for us.  The guy behind the counter gives us his "employee" discount for the first formal print run of Smile Cards; our publishers bend their rules to accommodate our gifting requirements for our upcoming book; Rev. Heng Sure lets us hold meetings in a monastery that is typically reserved for spiritual engagements; a foundation sends us a check from their "unrestricted" fund since they know we'll never send them a formal request.  One could say that living by these exceptions isn't sustainable; it externalizes costs to others.  Or as they used to say, it takes a village to sustain a Gandhi.  But that's missing the point entirely.  The key inquiry ought to be -- why is it that the village cares to keep a Gandhi alive?  Why do so many people make exceptions for ServiceSpace?  Because what it offers is many magnitudes greater than what it needs.  In the realm of quantifiable metrics, that's simply a good business but in the inter-dependent fields of love, people tend to reduce that complexity to an analysis of what's easy to replicate -- the exceptions.  They lose track of its foundation.  Zen Master Basho once said it best: "Don't follow in their footsteps.  Seek what they sought."


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"Service doesn't start when you have something to give; it blossoms naturally when you have nothing left to take."

"Real privilege lies in knowing that you have enough."