To serve globally
I always felt a bit of guilt. The friends who seem to be really engaged with the local community. They give their time organising and participating in events that supports aspiring young professionals in the local area.
I love to help others. I will give a lot of time to a person right in front of me to impart my wisdom and give them a spark of courage to take their own path. But I don’t seek it out. I don’t seek to help one person. I don’t give back to my local community.
It wasn’t until reading Hell Yeah or No by Derek Sivers. He introduces the idea of serving globally verses serving locally. It all made sense now.
He expresses that he can live in any community in the world, but his contributions are to be globally reaching rather than local. So rather than support a local event, he would rather put his time and resources into a supporting something that is global.
While on a logical level, I always assumed that supporting a global reach is greater than supporting a local—purely because you have the ability to reach a wider amount of people. But deep down, I felt a sense of guilt because I knew so many people who are happy serving their community.
Maybe it was that I couldn’t understand their motivation. After all, why limit your reach? Why serve 100 people, when you could serve 100,000?
But it wasn’t until Derek explained this in his book did I accept that we are inherently different. Some people are just locally focused, while others globally. There’s no grand reasoning. It’s just individual preference.
With this knowledge I can be more steadfast in my goals. I want to have a global reach. It means I don’t need to feel the guilt by saying no to serving locally where it comes at the expense of my greater mission.
Today’s ah-ha moment is that you are either someone who prefers to serve locally, or serve globally. Which one are you?