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Means of Interacting With Others to Build a Better World

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Thoughts on Service: A Complex Means of Interacting with Others to Build a Better World Introduction Had I been asked a short time ago to define service, I probably would have thought I was being presented with a trick questions. Service, it long seemed to me, was a relatively simple concept that referred to being of use to someone else. The exact manner of the usefulness or the intent with which useful actions for others were undertaken didn't used to matter. Everything that fit under this umbrella of usefulness was a type of service. Doing the family's dishes after dinner? Service. Holding the door for a stranger at the library? Service. Helping to organize clothes for charity donations? Service. All of these things are very different in terms of their impact on the world and the spirit with which they were undertaken, yet if asked to define service all of these things would have sprung to my mind without any further explanation presented or any more in-depth thought on my part regarding these types of service. After the learning and the introspection regarding service and other areas of my life in the past several years, however, my views have expanded radically. I would still consider the actions above with service, however I would be able to provide a more accurate definition of service that is more nuanced and more complex than simply "being useful." My understanding of service now incorporates the real effects and the real intentions of an act, and the concept of

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