Mahatma Gandhi: The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
Being one of my first semesters in college and living alone in a completely new town. I was granted the chance to take a class I had a strong interest for. This class was something I always restrained myself from talking about because I always had felt it was too much reading and too much time to understand it all. After taking this class I was truly able to finally get a sense of the true story of the History of the United States. A few weeks into my fall semester my professor started mentioning and slowly started to talk about service projects. My mother being very charitable for those in needs made myself also have a compassion to help others. I immediately signed up for the next available slot open for a service project. For my service project, I was able to take the opportunity of feeding the veterans.
I was very excited to do a service project but not much excited with having to cook a homemade meal. My history in the kitchen kind of made me scared to do the homemade meal thing. At first I told my roommate because she obviously does the cooking in the house. I told her I had signed up for a side dish to make for feeding the veterans and needed something easy to make or some store-bought food I can use that will pull off looking a little homemade. She laughed because she knows all about my horrible kitchen skills and told me I should cook something simple and to look online. So, I used the useful Google website on Internet Explorer and googled “easy side dishes to make”. After looking through a few websites I found something I could make, rice with peas. I thought it would be simple because no one can make bad rice.
So, I thought… I made three batches, the first batch I managed to burn the rice, the second came out okay, but it’s always third times the charm. I used the second batch for the bottom of a ;arge Tupperware and put the third batch on top to look more attractive and tasty, it wasn’t too bad when my roommate had tried it but she did mention that there was tastier rice out there. On my way there I got a little lost but eventually found the location on where my class was feeding the veterans. Once getting inside and finished setting up with some peers in my class I was a bit intimidated by everyone else’s delicious looking food. I just thought of the good deed and how much fun it will be to experience an opportunity like this.
Towards the end of feeding the veterans, a veteran had said to out loud, “whoever made the rice with peas made it taste like shit” and everyone of course had known it was me and it was a little awkward. But, instead of this hurting my feelings I made the best of what the man had said. Individually I consider myself a kind and compassionate person towards others. The preeminent leader of the Indian independence movement in British-ruled India named Mahatma Gandhi said, “the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” This was very relatable in my feelings toward what the man had said to me. The man did not hurt my feelings he just made me stronger as an individual and has strengthened my sense of character while opening me for a stronger passion to help others.
Helping others in my opinion helps myself realize how much I have and how fortunate I am to be me. Giving others things they need makes me feel complete as a whole person. This service project impacted my educational wisdom path by giving me an eye-opener of what it is really like in the real world. Doing this service project has impacted myself to personally become more involved in the community. Even though I never thought I could individually impact someone else personally, I felt like I did a good deed to people and cherished doing it. God guided me to take this class not just to remember to serve others but to also understand what really is the History of the United States.
