Sir Wilfred Grenfell Quote on Meaning and How Service Is The Rent We Pay For Our Room On Earth

“The service we render to others is really the rent we pay for our room on this earth. It is obvious that man is himself a traveler; that the purpose of this world is not ‘to have and to hold’ but ‘to give and to serve.’ There can be no other meaning.”

Sir Wilfred T. Grenfell

Beyond the Quote (313/365)

How could the purpose of the world be ‘to have and to hold’ if nothing that we have and nothing that we hold onto will come with us at the end of our lives? It will all be left behind—every prized possession, every luxury, and every dollar. What could possibly be the purpose of hoarding it all from one part of the world to your part of the world? It will simply be hauled from your part, back, when you die. It seems futile when you really think about it.

For security? For comfort? You might say. Sure. That’s something we all need to a certain degree in our lives. But, when having and holding crosses over into greed and hoarding, you have to ask yourself what you’re really trying to do. Why hoard more than you could ever need when others have so little? Why fight so hard to have “the most” at death when at death everything you have will only be redistributed to others anyway? Where is the meaning in this insane effort found?

It is as though you are a traveler on a great journey and along the way, you collect and keep all of the little trinkets, treasures, and rarities that you encounter. In the beginning, collecting and keeping is easy. You have plenty of space and strength for it. But, eventually, you get to a point where it’s too much to haul by foot. So what do you do?

You might consider buying a vehicle. This way, you can continue traveling with more space and strength. Until, of course, you out-possess even your vehicle. So, what’s next? An apartment or a house maybe? And so it goes, collecting and storing, collecting and storing, collecting and storing, until you are completely weighed down, rooted, and without any more space or strength to proceed. Where is the meaning found in this? Is your own comfort and security meaning enough?

You might add that at a certain point along the way, you would write a Will that states how you would like everything you collected to be given back. Some to this family member, some to that one. Some to this friend, and some to that one. And so this way, when you die, you can justify all that you collected and say that it had the meaning of helping those whom you cared about.

You see, meaning is only found at the end when what was collected was given back and used to serve others. Any meaning that you find within the items that you collect and store ends when your life ends. Just as any ideas, insights, stories, and knowledge that is unshared and stored in your mind ends when your life ends, too. And this is not to say that that which you have is not meaningful. It is simply to say that it is only shared by one and doesn’t continue after you. The formula for total meaning might be: Meaning x 1 = Meaning.

Meaning that is shared, however, becomes exponential. If we replay the great journey and imagine that, rather than collecting and storing, we exchanged and shared along the way—the story would play out quite differently wouldn’t it? There would be less to journey with, so journeying would be easier. Less space would be required to store, so no need to stress about renting or buying so much storage space. And, most importantly, lives would be continuously impacted along the way from what you continuously would be giving back—even after you pass.

Now, rather than meaning being multiplied by one, meaning would be multiplied by the total number of people whom were impacted. And they might continue to share and propel that meaning forward to others which might even make it exponential. It will be too many to count. It will be from big actions as well as small actions and things that were done that might not even be remembered.

It will simply act as a ripple that will forever beat outwards from the energy source that is your life. And that ripple will carry on impacting the world and all of those in it as a result. Your formula would suddenly turn into: Meaning x (# of people)^2 = Meaning. And THAT sounds like a much better way to pay your “rent” for your space and time here on earth. And rent is due!

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