Helping, Fixing, Serving
Helping, fixing and serving represent three different ways of seeing life.
By Men Living and Mike Rosen
Helping, fixing and serving represent three different ways of seeing life. When you help, you see life as weak. When you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. Fixing and helping may be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul.
In one of the thousand ways I’m lucky, I get to teach 4th Grade in what I might describe as an ordinary, middle-class suburb of Chicago. Leafy grounds, red brick building, clean classrooms with an abundance of resources. 10 miles to the east in Chicago are neighborhoods and schools that couldn’t contrast my circumstances more. The proximity and juxtaposition of experiences isn’t lost on me.
My school is more progressive than overtly traditional i.e. ‘connection over content’ aren’t just words, but rather a guiding priority regularly emphasized by our School Board, the Superintendent, and administration. This fits my teaching style very well, a marked and acute contrast to the private school environment I was in prior. I’m grateful for all of it.
Serving is different from helping. Helping is not a relationship between equals. A helper may see others as weaker than they are, needier…