Impact, service and success

We all want to be good and to do good. This is a natural desire of every heart. We all want to one degree or another to help others and to make Earth a place where justice, fairness and happiness prevail. This is part of our natural self and as such, should give us contentment, inner peace and external success.
Why then, is our passion not thriving, our heart not content, and our Earth in decay?
Impact
Our desire to impact, to make a difference becomes an obstacle for our success when we make it personal. If your genuine desire to help is tinted with a desire for personal recognition you are pulling down your success and you will not make a truly effective social impact.
I have witnessed people, especially involved in helping others and in the arts, who have a strong necessity to be recognized for their talents. It is important to recognize the different types of thoughts that are embedded with the desire to impress and to make an impact on others.
This desire is in all of us, and it has been present since our origins. It is so ancient, that we had lost track of its original pull. We may know that it is in the background in a form of pride and of shame, but we had not really taken the time to be aware how much mind space it occupies.
We for example, can be in front of a great humanitarian idea, a special cause, a talent, mastering a skill, choosing a career or simply having the desire to be special in front of friends, family and college. We do not realize that these impulses are ignited by the desire to have personal impact.
We can put in motion a wide range of ideas, emotions, relationships and behaviors regarding this desire to make an impact, to be recognized as special, unique and indispensable. We can enter into a great wheel of pain, rejection, rage, bitterness, comparison, self-judgment and helplessness when our desire is not being fulfilled. This desire, actually, can never be fulfilled as we always want more recognition, more power and more specialness.
This type of self-position is a trance of the mind. It obscures talents, clarity, playfulness, true service and success. This type of situation arises out of immaturity, lack of awareness and a wrong concept of Love.
I recall a session I had with a very successful football player. He came to me because he was depressed. He was 21, a great player and making lots of money. He was nice looking with many opportunities around the globe to meet fans and women. He, however, was depressed. In our conversations he was fearless enough to admit that he had chosen football because of his desire to please his parent’s view of success. His parent’s sure were pleased with his success, and gave him all the recognition he wanted; however, that was not enough for his happiness. When I asked him, if he would like to do something different he said no, “I am doing what I like”. The desire to make an impact was so strong that he achieved what he desired, however, true success, happiness and Love were not there.
Impact really should not be our concern. We need to recognize that we are constantly impacting the whole. Our presence is a beaming pole that emits where we are. Our presence feeds, modifies and manifests the whole. It is in a dimension that perhaps we are not aware of. When that awareness comes into your scope you abandon the childish view of personal impact and you enter into a realm of maturity, true Love and service.
Service
Pure service is a sign of maturity, awareness and Love. When your heart genuinely hurts in front of suffering, injustice or greed, you spontaneously make yourself available. It is like when you are having emotional or physical discomfort, you want solutions; you become creative and do your best to get out of your pain. Similarly, when you are plugged into the flow of awareness, you are expressing your love and concern as a form of service. You become creative, fearless in adopting new ways and skills to complete a task.
Service does not have questions, like what can I do? Or how I can help? You simply put in motion a skill that you already have to alleviate the stress of the moment. Our skills are already there so we don’t need to make a great effort to lend a hand and to be a team player for a common cause.
Service is a result of Love, and Love feeds from service. The activation of your passions is an expression of Love. Love seeks the display of your passion, of your skills. Creativity, the ability to connect and synchronicity are Love in motion, a motion of service, a motion of awareness and impeccability.
The irony is that in true service, you are not seeking to serve. You are just in front of your passion giving it a shape, and this manifestation becomes helpful and inspiring to others. Your manifestation is a model of maturity, a model of possibilities, uniqueness and originality.
Each person had come to this planet to infuse evolution with his/her own unique contributions which is true service. Your life makes an impact on evolution, either to uplift it, or to degenerate the potentials of the whole. In the end it is a matter of choice.
Success
Success is a space where Love can dwell and can express itself. Success is a quiet contentment coming from the bold discharge of your uniqueness.
When we are not preoccupied in making a personal impact, we are playful, our mind is clear and our actions are proper for the whole and the self to be happy. Success is the result of a Loving service that involves all, that includes all and puts oneself in the background. Success does not really need to be our concern. If we are doing what we Love for a period of time, success natural arises.