As I am trying to summarize what I have been doing and feeling this week, an amazing quote by Gandhi comes to my mind. “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others”, he said. I have been soul searching a lot recently, and being a part of Hope is Vital team has been such a great experience! As you know, we are working with Community Servings to prepare food for the critically ill population around Boston area. We have already spent three days doing service, and although at the end of the day I often feel tired, I am glad that I get to make a difference in someone else’s life. To be able to help others is a privilege, and I would love to continue doing so. These days I have been thinking and learning a lot about larger issues such as poverty, race, identity, and the value of service. I am also one of the two people that facilitate the reflection every evening, and I am quite happy with the discussions we are having. Yesterday’s reflection particularly stood out to me because we talked about the reasons why different people do service. How do we determine the value of one’s service? Is it one’s intentions, outcomes, or an interplay of different factors? I have been pondering upon these questions in my free time, and I am realizing that we, human beings are all connected in ways that are invisible to the eye but recognizable to the heart. And maybe serving is nothing but simply being human. I have had a lot of feelings and revelations this week, and the one thing I hope for after getting back to Lafayette is to be able to maintain this attitude, curiosity, and desire for a positive social change. It is incredibly easy to go back to my bubble and become comfortably numb, but it is clear to me that service is a duty that I need to accept as a moral human being.
Tomorrow is our last day of being here. I am glad that we got to see Boston too, I enjoy the atmosphere of this city. I also like how I can spend the first half of the day in the kitchen and see the Museum of Fine Arts in the second half. Even physical tiredness is okay because I feel like I have a purpose now. You can be sure that I will be talking about ASB and the lessons I learned for a long time!