By DALLIN M. ANDERSON
Y-Days at Brigham Young University is upon us again, bringing with it an assortment of opportunities for rendering service.
How fitting it is that one weekend each year, students, faculty, and staff, unite in service in remembrance of the foundations, traditions, the underpinnings of BYU. We join together to celebrate Ydays by engaging in meaningful service. This tradition points the mind toward the real reasons for our being here at the University, and the reasons for the University's existence. This university is about preparing individuals for lives of service and contribution. The best preparation, the most important thmg we could do to add substance to ourselves is to give ourselves away to meet the needs of others. 'The more we serve our fellowmen in appropriate ways, the more substance there is to our souls. We become more significant individuals as we serve others?indeed, it is easier to 'find' ourselves because there is so much more of us to find.''} There will never be a better time to start serving. Those who defer their service until after their preparation miss the essential growth that comes from such service, as well as the necessary preparation for greater service. When will there ever be more opportunity to serve than right now? Life will not slow down after graduation, allowing us more time to give of ourselves. The commitment to a life of service is developed here, now. This campus is no different than most places. There are those here who require help, attention, and love. Even here, where we may be lulled into thinking that 'all is well,' there are too many whose hands hang down, whose knees are feeble, who need their arms and legs, their spirits and testimonies strengthened. We must never be too busy fulfilling our day-to-day obligations that we have no time to reach out to individuals and provide others with strength and hope. This week, we will work side by side in organized service projects and provide wonderful service to campus. There will always be formal, organized opportunities to serve, blessing the lives of many. However, the most important of all service? more important than the sod we will help lay or the litter we will collect, will be the simple acts which plant joy and hope in the heart of the downtrodden and despondent. Too much service is left undone as we hurry from meeting to meeting, from class to class, passing by the real needs, the opportunities for simple acts that may have proven to be the catalyst to changing a life. In our hurry to be important, in our rush to change the world, we must learn to think less of how we are going to get where we want to be, and more about what others need that we could provide. The Savior taught us that finding ourselves is accomplished through the process of losing ourselves. The forgetting of self in order to focus on the needs of others is the road to fulfillment. When one gives all that he is capable of giving for the blessing of others, then the deep happiness, and joy promised to those who will lose themselves will be received. To the degree that one is willing to forget and to deny himself, to that degree will he taste the true sweetness of the love of God and His eternal blessings. The joy, the reward, the blessings, are all found in the service itself. There is no magical payday, no deferral of compensation. The blessings of service flow freely and amply back to us while we are yet in the act of providing the service to others. Those who have truly caught the spirit of service know that service is to be rendered every waking moment of life. There are no greater men or women than those who give their lives away for others. That is what the Savior did. We often think of his sacrificing his own life upon the cross, but what of the sacrifice of his mortal life. He gave his life through the manner in which he lived it. He forgot himself. He denied himself. He gave himself away. His was a life of service, of love. And after giving his entire life, he again gave his life as he humbly bowed to the will of the Father and the needs of an infinite number of the Father children, and in the highest expression of service and love?the epitome of greatness of character and soul, He laid all upon the alter for the benefit of mankind. In our quest to be as Christ is, in our search for greatness?both as individuals and as an institution, let us never forget the eternal truth that those who are greatest are and will always be the servants of mankind. (
' Spencer W. Kimball Ensign, December 1974, p.2.