There Is No Object; Service, Goal Orientation, and Production.

Goal orientation is a big part of our culture. There is this construct that to succeed in life, you visualize what you want, make a plan, execute the plan, and then you will obtain your goal. When taken under consideration, this is not the process of success, but the process of production. You work (not only work, but toil) and at the end of your work you have a finished product. This is an absolutely horrible way to look at service. There is no done. There is never done. This can be frustrating. It feels like you're going no where, or worse, that you're going backwards and at the end of the day you have nothing to show for it. In service, the need to “have something to show for it” will eventually drive you crazy.

I help manage a clothing donation room and sometimes I go in and find that the hours spent folding the day before have been undone or a delivery of donations has been made and there are a dozen new bags to go through. Every now and then my heart sinks, but it's times like these that have taught me to stop looking for the light at the end of the tunnel. This is not a statement of defeat. I've simply chosen to recognize that my service is not production. It's not about being done. I do as much as I can, I try to do the most useful things first and I understand the room will never be perfect. Instead, I acknowledge that I organize to make it easier for those coming to find a most basic need, clothing.

Rejecting the framework of production as success also helps maintain ones sanity when working in direct social service. I spend a few hours, a few days a week, with a child, for a few months. I cannot, in that time, make them actualized little people. I can't teach a toddler why biting isn't a good coping technique. Instead, I just have to work a little more each day to decrease the frequency with which s/he tries to bite someone. S/He tries to bite, I put hir in time out. S/He leaves time out. I put hir back. There is no goal, there is no product, only process.

Service is not production. When these children leave I will “have nothing to show for it.” As I say this I know there are people reading who will protest and say “of course you do” and will proceed to give me an example, but the child is gone and the clothes are a mess. Each day I serve I am encouraged to remember that it is not about the goal, but about the process. The worker building the brake system does not hope to see the car. I have no destination. There is no object. I have time, passion, and life. There is process, and journey, and joy. When one child leaves I will greet the next and when the tshirt piles begin to mount, god knows, I will sort them.

~Jennifer