I see a pattern in my children that I believe needs correcting. They don’t seem to want to do anything that they don’t want to do. I wonder where they learned that? Ok, I know where they learned that. It was from me, and every other adult that I know. Our culture teaches that you should only have to do the things that you enjoy or that you want to do, and so we spend money, time, and effort avoiding the things that we don’t feel like doing so that we can be comfortable. The problem is that I have often found that in doing some of the things that I don’t want to do I have found fulfillment, a sense of accomplishment, and even enjoyment.
Case in point….Tori and I were recently schedule to do our time at the local high school concession stand during a high school basketball game. Our son plays on the JV team and so we were scheduled to work during the varsity games. I dreaded it. I am an introvert by nature, and meeting new people scares me, plus I am bad at math and would be expected to make change, so people that I don’t know are going to see me doing something that I am terrible at. I didn’t want to go. I tried to be sick, but couldn’t come up with any symptoms that were convincing. So off we went to the school. I put on my happy face and tried to be friendly, and it worked. I met some wonderful people who work the stand every week and they explained in detail all of the ins and outs of running the stand. I had a blast. Yes, I failed at making change, but people were gracious. I met new people and even liked most of them. Best of all I realized that this was right in my sweet spot…Serving! I love to serve, and what better place to serve than a concession stand. Before long I started looking for other things that I didn’t want to do while there. I swept some popcorn off of the floor out in the cafeteria and met the two kids who put it there, by trying to throw it up and catch it in their mouths. I should have chastised them, but I decided instead to critique their style and gave them a demonstration of how to do it properly. I restocked the candy counter, refilled all the coolers, and found great joy in looking for things to do that would make it easier on whoever worked in the stand next.
I came away from the experience with a desire to do it again soon, and also had some good stories to tell. I enjoyed myself, met some new people, and found an opportunity to serve my community. I would have missed out on all of this if I had “followed my heart”, and limited my activity to only that which I wanted to do. So my challenge for you today is to get out and do something that you don’t want to do, and if possible, find something that allows you to serve others. You will find it hard to get started, but after your through you will feel better and you might just have some fun.