Service is the outer expression of a wish to benefit others – to increase their happiness. At its best, it is an expression of caring, sharing, and delighting in each other. When it arises effortlessly and spontaneously, it is beautiful to watch. Yet service can also be experienced as a duty. Instead of being light and joyful, it feels heavy and burdensome. For most of us, learning how to serve – and to be served – is a lifetime's task.

In every moment there is an opportunity to make someone else’s life a little bit easier or nicer. Every thought, word and action that flows from us in a loving way has the potential to create happiness. Are we willing to find within ourselves the sensitivity and intelligence, the clarity and conviction that this will take?

The rewards are huge. As we discover and deepen our wish for other people to be happy, we also find the key to our own happiness. Nobody gets left out of the equation. This is the golden rule of heart-felt service that underpins the great spiritual and wisdom traditions of the world. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto yourself.”

"Life's persistent and most urgent question is: What are you doing for others?"

• Martin Luther King Jr.

"How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me - What can it be?"

• Vincent Van Gogh

"Even a small star shines in the darkness"

• Finnish proverb

"Genuine politics - even politics worthy of the name - the only politics that I am willing to devote muself to - is simply a matter of serving those around us: serving the community and serving those who will come after us. Its deepest roots are moral because it is a responsibility expressed through action, to and for the whole."

• Vaclav Havel

"It is one of the beautiful compensations of this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself."

• Ralph Waldo Emerson