When I think about the kinds of experiences that really change someone spiritually and make them want to help others, I picture those moments that just stop you in your tracks. You know, the ones that make you see everything differently and realize that the way you have been looking at life is not the whole picture.
Those moments in nature that just blow your mind have been huge for me. You are hiking alone, and you come around a corner to see an incredible waterfall, or you are sitting by the ocean at sunset and suddenly you feel this overwhelming sense of being part of something huge. All your daily worries, your job stress, your relationship drama, what people think of you just disappear for a while. You realize you are this tiny speck in an incredible universe, and you are just living in God’s gift. I especially feel this when I am at St. Vlad’s summer camp because you are always connected to nature, and you are always reminded just how great life can be with no worries and simply good memories with your friends, who are on the same religious journey you are. Those moments have a way of sticking with you, making you treat the world more gently because you have felt how precious and interconnected everything is.
Life has a way of teaching us through pain too, even though we would rather skip those lessons. Losing someone you love, getting sick, going through depression, these experiences strip away all the surface stuff and force you to ask what really matters. This year especially, I have gone through two great losses in my life, and it was tremendously hard, but I took that as a way of reflection that I had something so great in my life that it was so hard when it was gone. It is like suffering opens this capacity for understanding other people’s pain in a way that just reading about it never could. Suddenly you are not worried about impressing people or climbing
a ladder. You are focused on spending time with family, appreciating small moments, and helping other people go through similar struggles.
Sometimes the spiritual awakening comes through the help of the company itself. You might start tutoring kids or helping elderly people around your neighborhood just because someone asked you to or because it looks good on a resume. But then something shifts. You stop thinking about what you are getting out of it and start really caring about whether that kid understands fractions or whether that lonely person has someone to talk to. There is something about focusing on other people’s wellbeing that quiets down all the noise in your own head.
Meeting people from diverse backgrounds and beliefs can also crack open your worldview in the best way. You grow up thinking your family’s way of doing things is the only right way, and then you travel or make friends with people who see life completely differently. College has been an eye-opening experience; you get to see just how different people live and their other ways of living. You realize there are so many paths to wisdom and happiness, so many ways to connect with something bigger than yourself.
Then there is the quiet stuff of meditation, prayer, just sitting in silence. At first it might feel pointless or boring, but if you stick with it, sometimes you glimpse a deeper part of yourself that is not constantly worried or wants things to be different. It is like finding a calm center underneath all the chaos of everyday life. From that place, being kind to others does not feel like work—it just feels natural, like the most obvious thing in the world. My favorite thing to do right now in the quiet is connect with nature and read my Bible. It gives the perfect opportunity for self-reflection while also being connected with God.
All these different experiences are similar. They break down that wall between “me” and “everyone else.” They show you that we are all in this together, all struggling with the same basic human stuff—wanting to be loved, afraid of being hurt, trying to figure out what life means.
Once you really get that, helping other people stops feeling like charity and starts feeling like common sense. Of course, you want to help—their happiness is connected to your happiness.
That is why the most meaningful spiritual paths always include service to others. You can meditate all day, but if you are not somehow making the world a little better, you are missing something important. And you can volunteer constantly, but if you are also not working on your own inner stuff, you will burn out or get bitter. When you combine both growing spiritually and helping others, they feed each other. The more you understand about yourself and life, the more you naturally want to ease suffering wherever you see it. And the more you serve others, the more you learn about what really matters and what it means to be human, while also never forgetting that no one is perfect, and it is truly okay to make mistakes and that God does forgive.
It is like these experiences wake you up to the fact that taking care of each other is not just nice to do, it is how we are supposed to live. It is what makes life meaningful and beautiful, even when it is hard.
