IT is a simple fact of tennis: if you do not get your service in, you lose the point. The service is the be-all-and-end-all; if you cannot serve you will lose quickly. It does not matter if you have a brilliant forehand, backhand, spin, lob or smash because if you do not know how to serve then you will get nowhere in tennis! The game starts, and can easily finish, with your serve. Any tennis player who wants to do well must work hard on his service.
by Tim Middleton
It should come as no surprise therefore that the same applies in your daily life, if you do not get your service in, you lose the point of life. Similarly you may be brilliant with your brain, your body, your charm, your wit, your talents, but if you do not know how to serve then you will get nowhere in life. The match, the game, the life, only starts when you serve. Leo Tolstoy, the Russian author, once wrote that “The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity”, while Albert Einstein claimed that “Only a life lived in the service to others is worth living.” It is a sad fact of today’s society that not many people, let alone tennis players, have grasped the reality of this simple truth.
Furthermore, the people who should know about it more than anyone else do not pass on the strategic importance of it. It is a very strange quirk of nature that the hardest job in the world is one that receives no payment (and also does not need any qualifications, training, interview, appraisal or accountability) – the job of being a parent! The successful parent knows what service is about; the effective parent will serve their child at all times. Parents then need to teach their children this truth.
Then it is further disturbing that the group that is also responsible for teaching service, namely schools, are not remembering that their role is as that of a service agency, not a profit-making business. It is a strange irony too that the one area in the business world that should understand this is often the one that does not display it — the Civil Service — where often the feeling is that employees are not civil and they do not serve. Of course, society does talk about Corporate and Social Responsibility but it is almost expected as a right. Service is voluntary and in fact, is a personal rather than a corporate responsibility.
There is a real and genuine concern that people are not willing to serve. Clubs, associations, church groups, sports groups, charities, parents’ groups, Boards — few people are stepping forward to volunteer their services for these groups. Instead, increasingly, people are asking, or are even actively looking, for what is in it for them if they do go on such committees. In fact, people are staggered to think that society expects them to do something for nothing.
People are not being taught to serve. People teach about leadership, like they teach tennis players how to smash the overhead lob; people teach about marketing yourself, like tennis players are taught to spin the ball; people teach about backhanders, like tennis players are taught how to play the backhand shot, yet people do not teach the importance of service.
In tennis, you serve with the desire and hope that you will not get anything in return; you want to serve an ace! So, in life, you should serve with no intention of any return, as the famous prayer attributed to St Ignatius of Loyola underlines: “Teach us, good Lord, to serve Thee as Thou deservest; to give, and not to count the cost … to labour, and not to ask for any reward …” We need to teach people to serve, without expecting anything in return.
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
Martin Luther King Junior once said that “Everybody can be great … because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.” Parents are very concerned about their children gaining qualifications but they should be more concerned that they are willing to serve. Albert Schweitzer, who served as a missionary doctor in Gabon for many years, surmised that “I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.” We know of those two speakers, not because they said those things but because they served. We must learn, first, to serve; then we must teach and show people how to serve.
Tim Middleton is the executive director of the Association of Trust Schools and author of the book on “failure” called Failing to Win. email: [email protected] website: www.atschisz.co.zw
