Reflective Essay On Selfless Service

After indulging into my service learning experience, I can say I have only further deepened my understanding what it is to serve. The pressing thought that have followed me through the semester is “why do I serve?” It has only made me want to serve for more selfless reasons than ever before. After discussing utilitarianism, I was deeply concerned into my own intentions realizing that in fact, sometimes I did go out and serve not for the sole purpose of helping others but to make myself feel good. This idea of selfless service is hard to comprehend because the act of doing in service in itself is predominately good. But the intentions that follow with it can also influence the experience. Once I had realized this and really attempted to focus

Singer brought up some concepts and topics that I felt extremely uneasy with and made me fully think about ethics and diverge into motives for service and for others partaking in service as well. Singing says “Perhaps it is not love that motivates effective altruists but empathy, the ability to put oneself in the position of others and identity with their feelings or emotions.” After reading this aspect of this book I recognized that Singer was not trying to sway people away from giving to those in need, but fully analyze what people needed and give that to them. I took this back to my own service learning experience and tried to implement it. I realized that sometimes the children do not what to do an activity for a reason, not to just be difficult. I came across one specific girl who constantly did not want to do an activity and just sat at the table alone. Initially, I pinned her as a difficult kid, until I decided to ask her why and I soon realized that she was struggling in math and wanted to get her homework done in school, because she couldn’t focus at home. From then on, we made it a point to sit down with her and help her with her weekly math packet and the additional sheets given to

Paul Farmer and Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez in their book “In the Company of The Poor.” Paul Farmer says

“Even good intentions and long experience sometimes fail us. Accompaniment with discernment also requires asking tough questions: Are we doing the right thing? Have we carried through? Have we followed up? DO we understand as fully as we might? Are we doing enough? Is the problem solved? If an effort is not laden with anxiety, it’s probably not accompaniment, or it’s just the beginning of the effort.” (128)

This ideology that service can fail struck me. Service is looked at such a high and mighty thing that people only do with good intentions and good outcomes. However, Farmer makes the claim that sometimes this may not be true. Sometimes people can serve for reasons other than what is usually thought of. This reign true sometimes with people looking to serve for publicity but I never looked into the meaning of it for myself until after reading this book. It made me fully question my intentions not only in service but I applied it to my major of teaching. It made me truly think why I wanted to be a teacher and for what reasoning did I want to teach. I had to eventually recognize that is was not for the title or the stereotypes that come with a teacher, I realized that it was in fact where my passion