#Selfless Service

Doing Good When Recognition Never Arrives

Kent M. Keith’s line confronts a quiet, familiar disappointment: our kind actions are often ignored, misremembered, or even misconstrued. By stating that “the good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow,” he names a hard truth about moral life in an impatient world. Yet the command that follows—“Do good anyway”—turns this truth into an invitation. Instead of treating forgetfulness as a reason to withdraw, Keith reframes it as the very context in which authentic goodness must operate. [...]

Awakening to Life as an Act of Service

Across cultures, the awakening takes familiar forms. The Bhagavad Gita’s karma yoga urges selfless action: “Therefore, without attachment, perform the work that is to be done” (3.19). Buddhism’s bodhisattva vow, voiced in Shantideva’s Bodhicaryavatara (c. 8th century), longs to be “a boat, a bridge, a cause of well-being for all.” Christian diakonia echoes in Matthew 25:40: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these… you did for me.” And Ubuntu, articulated by John Mbiti (1969) as “I am because we are,” recasts identity as shared being. Thus, service is not a narrow duty; it is a cosmology of belonging. [...]

The Miracle of Happiness in Service - Mother Teresa

Rather than viewing work as a burden, this perspective encourages seeing it as an opportunity to bring happiness, both to oneself and to those being served. [...]