Tea with Linda - Service
Tea with Linda - Service
Contributor: Linda Kavelin Popov, Co-Founder of TVP, September 2025
The practice of virtues is inherently a summons to grow. Some virtues like mindfulness are quiet, contemplative and reflective. Others like service call us to action. Within this virtue are enwrapped many others – love, empathy, caring, purposefulness and more. As we strive for mastery in one virtue, magically others are ignited.
I remember a chant shared by a facilitator in Oregon at a Virtues Project gathering years ago. It focused on why we come to earth: “To love, to serve, and remember,” he chanted repeatedly. It was a moving and memorable meditation. It reminded me of one of the catch phrases describing The Virtues Project™ -- “helping us to remember who we really are.”
The question of why we are here and what gifts we are here to manifest is at the core of service. Everyone has different talents and spiritual capacities – a unique virtues profile of both strengths and growth qualities. It is often in excavating an elusive growth virtue that we make the most soulful progress.
When I was in primary school at about age nine, I was elected to be a member of the school council. In that role, I had to face a terrifying phobia – speaking in public. I could barely say my own name out loud in those tender years. I recall the heart-pounding fear before I had to climb the five steps up to the stage where all those eyes were peering up at me, and some of the kids were whispering and giggling to each other. Sometimes my throat closed completely, and I turned beet red as I waited for that deadly silence to relent so I could read the report in my trembling hand.
At eleven, my throat was literally paralyzed by Bulbar Polio. When I recovered, my voice was deep and sounded much older - a new form of embarrassment.
Things suddenly changed at university. I experienced a burst of courage to speak in public when I was invited to address a theological school about a topic that was very meaningful to me. I was so amazed to survive the presentation that it paved the way for a future addressing thousands of people in audiences worldwide.
Speaking became a joyful experience rather than a torment. Confidence was my growth virtue, and its development was ignited by my desire to serve something I deeply cared about.
Have you ever surprised yourself when you felt called to serve in a new way? Following that siren call, especially if it is guided by a meaningful purpose, is one of the most satisfying experiences in life. There is a well-researched smile curve chart in which wellbeing and happiness are higher in the late teens and rise again in the later years from ages 50 to 98? www.brookings.edu
One of the joy factors is engaging in meaningful activities of service to others. In whatever season you find yourself, service that you enjoy will bring happiness to others, and perhaps even more happiness to you.