Is Your Desire to Serve a Calling or a Craving?

By Donna Zajonc

In public life, there is a thin line between the calling to
serve and the craving to serve. Some of my clients report
such a strong need to serve that it becomes a "craving," a
kissing cousin to addiction. Those of us dedicated to public
service sometimes confuse our desire to serve with a belief
that we are "supposed" to serve." Our offering of service is
then a craving rather than a calling.

A calling is a desire to give. A craving is a desire to get.
A calling is our opportunity to share our unique contributions
and blessings with others. A craving is a fear that there is
"not enough," a hole that we must fill. A calling arises
naturally from our sense of completeness. A craving is a need
to get because we are incomplete.

A calling is a conscious awareness of our wholeness, spurring
us to acts of spontaneous generosity. We know that by responding
to our personal calling, by sharing our gifts in full, we
encourage others to reveal their own greatness. Conversely, a
craving is a nagging sense of lack, an unconscious reaction to
an imagined deficit that demands to be overcome.

If we as public servants live with a craving to serve, we are
in the grip many of the destructive byproducts of addiction may
arise in us: fear, manipulation, control, anger, jealousy and
excessive pride—the hallmarks of self-defeating behavior. Housing
such toxic emotions, we become unable to listen to others. Our
political approach turns mean-spirited as our cravings gradually
begin to run our lives for us. We may become so delusional that
we believe we are "destined to serve," and that someone on high
has anointed our time in office. Our grandiosity grows, and we
move into a full, self-centered power grab—but all in the name
of serving the people!

The seductive nature of public life, whether in the corporate
world or in the arenas of sports and entertainment, our cravings
may be fed by hobnobbing with the rich and powerful. Hovering
lobbyists, persons of privilege bidding for our attention, adoring
staff, as well as plenty of alcohol and other drugs, all combine
to make the public leader's life fertile ground for cravings and
addictions.

Even healthy people, who enter public life with their cravings
under control, often find that its pressures and temptations tend
to magnify their cravings, sometimes even igniting full-blown
addictions. As the cycle of need unfolds, we work desperately to
retain our power, doing whatever it takes to ensure our re-election
or maintaining our powerful public position. Before we know it,
we're living an unconscious, mostly unfulfilling life grounded in
selfish desires rather than higher motives.

When we are called to service we become aware of our passions and
our actions unfold with ease and joy. Colossal tasks become simple.
We glow with excitement that attracts others to join our vision.
By relinquishing attachments that feed our cravings we surrender to
higher motives---therein lies the true satisfaction of living our
calling!

If you are in public service position now, take time to ask yourself
whether you are leading from a place of wholeness or incompleteness.
Do you need the adoration of voters or the fame that may come from
public life? Only you know your true motivations and what is
underneath your desire to serve.

During this 2008 election cycle, listen carefully to the language
and motivations of those running for office. As you listen, attempt
to distinguish between whether their desire to serve is a calling or
a craving. Let's all hope and pray that more leaders are stepping
forward who see their time in public life as a true calling.

"Have you noticed a theme during this 2008 Presidential
election? Senator Obama is winning with a message of
hope and inspiration and that we must have a new kind
of politics in America. Governor Huckebee stated in
his Iowa acceptance speech that political leaders must
move from "Me to We" which was the title of my September,
2006 newsletter. The source of my hopeful attitude about
the future of politics has relied on the awakening of
citizens who are fed up with the politics of fear and
destruction. The new era of political leadership has begun!"
~Donna Zajonc