Dear prospective global health warrior,

Before you head out with your copy of “Mountains Beyond Mountains” tucked beneath your arm, a Nalgene water bottle, and a Timbuktu messenger bag, I advise you to take a deep breath and think about why you are traveling half way around the world. You might think, “I’m going to help the less fortunate, of course. They don’t have the resources we do, they have poor health care, and I’m willing to be of any help.” Sounds ideal right? Let’s take a closer look.

With the amount of financial aid and celebrity attention pouring towards global health, we get caught up in the romantic ideal of going to help the less fortunate. However, semantics and personal experiences may tell a different story. To help means to assist someone who is of lesser strength than you are. When helping, you are the one in control, the one who is “above” the other because of your situation in life. More importantly, you are conscious of the aid you’re providing, of its value. When it’s time to go home from your summer, you can immediately distance yourself and resume drinking Starbuck’s lattes because “you did your part”. I am not saying that helping doesn’t aid the less fortunate – it most certainly does. But unfortunately, the impact of “helping out” may last about as long as your flight back home because of the manner in which you treat this experience mentally.

To serve means to think of every other human soul on this earth as an equal and that we are all connected. It is to engulf the thinking that borders and colors are a concept for the weak of mind to contemplate upon. It means that you are indebted to serve the other simply because he or she is suffering. In the process of serving, no debt is incurred by your fellow citizen who just happened to be born in an unfortunate situation. Serving pulls at your soul, and your ego will achieve no gain from this. Instead of feeling as if you’ve put together a difficult contraption, it will feel more like you simply picked something up and placed it back on the shelf where it belongs. Instead of seeing their pain, you feel their pain. When you serve, you can return home to the states where we are fortunate, but you still have trouble sleeping some nights, thinking of what your brothers and sisters in other parts of the world may be going through that night. Helping may take brains and brawn, but serving takes your mind, body, and soul and provides it to those who may need it. Similar but not equal.

Fellow colleagues, the next time we think of giving our time to someone, whether it be abroad or down the street, let’s try serving and see what change this may bring. Not only will we benefit those needing assistance but the effect on our own psyche and the manner in which we serve will also be enhanced.

*credit to Dr. Rachel Remen and those pictured below for inspiration in writing this