Give More, Live More: How Serving Others with Faith Brings Daily Joy

There’s a quiet paradox at the heart of service: the more you give to others, the more fully you live. For senior men navigating retirement, that insight isn’t just philosophical — it’s practical. Men who serve others with genuine faith-driven motivation consistently report higher levels of purpose, peace, and daily joy than those who don’t. In this episode, we explore what it actually means to serve others from a place of faith rather than obligation, how small daily acts of service can reshape the emotional texture of your life, and how to find the right service opportunities that align with your values, your abilities, and the time you have to give. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What if the exact thing you're doing to try and um find happiness in retirement is actually the very thing making you miserable?

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Yeah, that is a uh pretty heavy thought to start with.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Right. But today we are looking at this body of research that suggests our entire modern approach to finding purpose in our later years might be, well, kind of biologically and psychologically backwards.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Completely backward.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

I mean you look anywhere right now, and the prevailing message about aging is entirely focused on self-optimization. We're constantly told to, you know, look inward, to optimize our morning routines, to stare into this metaphorical mirror to figure out how to make ourselves feel happier or uh more relevant once we step away from our careers.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

It's a profoundly inward-looking culture. I mean, the instruction we receive is almost entirely about taking our own emotional temperature.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Oh, that's a good way to put it.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Yeah, we're conditioned to treat our internal state like a puzzle to be solved. Like we have to look inside for the answers to the isolation and anxiety that you know often accompany our later years. But the problem with constantly taking your own emotional temperature is that you eventually convince yourself you have a fever.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Wow, that is a brilliant way to frame it. And it brings us directly to the focus of today's deep dive. We are doing an audio overview, extracting some truly counterintuitive insights from the editorial team over at the Encore Project.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

They do some really fantastic work.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

They really do. And we're specifically looking at their work today on how to serve others with faith. The mission today is to explore the mechanics of how blending spirituality with acts of service doesn't just uh help the community, it fundamentally rewires the person doing the giving. Right. It's a total departure from the idea of retirement as this permanent retreat from obligation.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

And it is a very necessary departure, too, because the standard vision of retirement, we're often sold, you know, uh the endless vacation, the total shedding of responsibility.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

So, of course, every day.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Exactly. It sounds great in a life insurance commercial. But in practice, it often leads to a profound sense of obsolescence. What the source material does is reframe service. It stops treating it as this civic chore or a guilt-driven obligation, and instead positions it as the most effective psychological and spiritual anchor available to us as we age.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Okay, let's unpack this because I want to look closely at the distinction the editorial team makes right at the beginning of their work. They draw a very hard line between standard run-of-the-mill volunteering and what they specifically call serving with faith.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Yes, there's a big difference.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Right. And I'm looking at this distinction and I'm trying to figure out where the actual line is drawn in practice because they aren't just talking about writing a check to a local charity or showing up to a roadside cleanup, are they?

SPEAKER_01 2:48

No, the mechanism is entirely different. Standard volunteering, while obviously still beneficial to society, it often carries an unspoken transaction. You donate your time or your money, and in exchange, you expect to feel good about yourselves, or you expect gratitude from the recipient, or perhaps recognition from your peers.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Like getting your name on a plaque.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Exactly. Serving others with faith, as defined in the text, is rooted heavily in two specific elements spirituality and complete selflessness. It is trusting that your actions are part of a greater divine purpose rather than a transaction designed to boost your own self-esteem.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Aaron Powell So it's like it's the difference between doing a favor and secretly waiting for a thank you card versus dropping a quarter in someone's expired parking meter just because That's a great analogy. The faith element just completely removes the transaction entirely. It's severing the tie between the action and the expected emotional payout.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

What's fascinating here is why this matters so much. The text references religious foundations for this, noting how in Christianity, for example, Jesus' teachings in Mark 12, 31 about loving your neighbor, they frame service as a direct expression of faith itself.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Right. The act of giving is the fulfillment of your purpose.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Exactly. You aren't doing it to purchase a feeling of goodness. You're doing it because you believe you are called to do it.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

I think that lack of expectation is the crucial variable here. I mean, if you're doing a favor for someone and you're secretly waiting for them to validate you.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

Waiting for that text back.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Yeah, waiting for that thank you text or for them to acknowledge your sacrifice. You are essentially tethering your own emotional stability to their reaction.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Which is dangerous.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

It is. If they're having a bad day and forget to thank you, suddenly you feel resentful, you feel drained. Your attempt to do something good just created a new source of stress. But the faith element removes that vulnerability completely.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

It really acts as an incredible protective mechanism for your peace. When service becomes a divine calling rather than a social transaction, the outcome simply doesn't dictate your inner state. Whether the person notices, whether they show gratitude, whether the intervention even works in a measurable, immediate way, none of that matters to your core identity. Your peace is derived from the spiritual growth of the act itself, from the alignment between what you believe and what your hands are actually doing in the world.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Which is a fascinating shift in power dynamics, if you think about it. It takes the power to validate your existence completely out of the hands of the external world and puts it right back into your own spiritual practice.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

It really does.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

You are giving simply because you believe in the transformative power of service. And the source material highlights that, for senior men specifically, this offers a really unique off-ramp from the pressure cooker of their working years.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

It does, and we have to understand the context of what those working years actually look like. I mean, for decades, a man's value in a traditional career structure is constantly measured by output.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Right. Metrics.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Exactly. It's measured by promotions, by performance reviews, by his ability to provide financial security. When retirement hits, that measurement system completely vanishes. The silence can be deafening. The loss of identity is jarring.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Yeah, you spend 40 years running on a treadmill where the speed is set by someone else, and suddenly the machine just stops. You just go flying off the front.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

That is a very real psychological crisis. And what this faith-based service does is reaffirm that a person still has a vital purpose. It allows them to actively cultivate a legacy.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

But a different kind of legacy.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Right. Instead of a legacy of financial accumulation or career milestones, which are, you know, ultimately finite, it is a legacy rooted in compassion and unconditional love. It provides a feeling of meaningful accomplishment that isn't tied to a quarterly earnings report.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

But um there is a friction here that I can't quite get past, and I want to wrestle with this paradox for a second. We just established that the core rule here is to give completely without expectation. It must be selfless. Yet the editorial team spends a significant amount of time detailing the clinical mental health benefits that the giver receives.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

They do, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

They point out that studies consistently show acts of kindness, reduce feelings of depression, they lower anxiety, decrease stress, and increase self-worth. So wait, if I know it lowers my blood pressure and cures my isolation, isn't reading a whole report on the mental health benefits of giving inherently ruining the process? How do I give selflessly if I know the biological payout is waiting for me?

SPEAKER_01 7:24

This raises an important question, and it's honestly the ultimate paradox of altruism. It trips up a lot of people who genuinely want to help, but uh feel guilty that they feel good doing it.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Right, like I'm being selfish by being selfless.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Exactly. But it helps to look at the actual neurological and biological mechanism of how this works. The lowered anxiety and the stress reduction, these are not the goal of the service. They're not a transactional reward given to you by the universe for being a good person. They are the natural mechanical byproduct of taking your focus off yourself.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Okay, break down that mechanism for me. Because how does taking the focus off myself mechanically lower my stress?

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Think of anxiety like having too many background applications open on your computer CTU.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Oh, I hate that.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Right. It drains the whole system. Anxiety, by its very nature, requires a hyperfixation on the self. It is the constant, exhausting process of monitoring your own worries. You know, is my health declining? Do my kids call enough? Does anyone need my advice anymore? Am I gonna run out of money?

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Yeah, the mental loop.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Right. Your brain is constantly running these background programs and it drains your battery, it spikes your cortisol. You cannot cure that by staring harder into the mirror or thinking more deeply about your own problems.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Because you're just opening more background apps to try and monitor the monitoring apps.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Precisely. But service acts as a task manager. When you turn your attention entirely outward, when your physical hands are busy serving someone else, and your mental processing power is focused entirely on their immediate well-being, you force quit all those internal monitoring applications. You redirect all your processing power to the person in front of you. The anxiety drops not because you earned a biological reward, but because you simply stopped feeding the anxiety your attention. The physiological piece is the inevitable byproduct of the outward focus.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

That makes the whole process so much more accessible. You aren't volunteering to lower your blood pressure. Your blood pressure drops because for three hours on a Tuesday afternoon, you just stopped stressing about your own mortality while you helped someone else solve a problem. Exactly. It's a mechanical inevitability, which also explains the increase in self-worth the text mentions.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Yes, the self-worth increases because you're presented with undeniable lived evidence that you still matter to the physical world. When you see the positive impact on someone else's life, even a minor impact, you're reminded that your presence is a net positive for your community. It completely short circuits the feeling of obsolescence.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

So we understand the psychology and we understand the biological mechanics of why this outward focus is so critical. But I want to talk about the actual application because this is where a lot of highly accomplished retirees get completely stuck.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Oh, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Right. When we use words like legacy, divine calling, and service, the barrier to entry sounds incredibly high. For a retired executive, the impulse is often to say, Well, I used to run a regional sales division, so my service needs to be starting a massive global nonprofit or building a community center from the ground up.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

And that pressure to do something grand is exactly what paralyzes people. It is the ego trying to reassert itself in retirement. The ego says, if I'm going to serve, I must be the savior. It must be a massive project worthy of my former status.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Yeah. But what I really love about the approach from the folks over at the Encore Project is how accessible they make this. They systematically dismantle that idea. They emphasize that grand projects are absolutely not necessary, and in fact, they can sometimes distract from the pure nature of faith-based service.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

They're so pragmatic about it. They highlight what they call microacts of service, and they don't require immense resources or months of planning.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Here's where it gets really interesting, though. I think we need to look at why these microacts are actually so difficult for some people to embrace. The text mentions simply offering a listening ear to someone going through a difficult time or running a basic errand for a neighbor. Right. To someone used to making million-dollar decisions, fixing a neighbor's leaky faucet or dropping off a casserole might feel trivial. You don't need to build the community center. Sometimes you just need to fix your neighbor's leaky faucet. But it requires a certain amount of ego death to realize that the leaky faucet is exactly what the world needs from you in that moment.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

That ego death is the crucial bridge to genuine spirituality. It is the realization that service is not about demonstrating your capacity, it is about meeting another human being and their vulnerability. Let's look at the example of incorporating service into existing hobbies, which the source material heavily advocates. Oh, yeah, the gardening example. Right. If you are an avid gardener, the act of service isn't launching an agricultural startup. It's taking the tomatoes you grew and walking next door to share them with a neighbor who might be struggling.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

And let's deconstruct the mechanism of why that specific act sharing the tomatoes is so powerful. Because it isn't just about the physical vegetable. A retiree dealing with isolation isn't going to cure their loneliness by just sitting in their house. Walking over to the neighbor forces a micro interaction.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

It breaches the barrier of isolation.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

Exactly. It creates a moment of community integration that doesn't carry the heavy formal weight of networking.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

And it utilizes the skills and talents you have already spent a lifetime acquiring. The text points out that seniors have an immense reservoir of practical expertise, mentoring younger generations, offering tutoring, or providing practical help with home repairs. You already own the tools, and you already possess the knowledge. Serving with faith is simply the act of taking those existing resources and pivoting their direction towards someone else's benefit without sending them an invoice.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

They also specifically call out serving through your own family, helping a family member with errands or offering emotional support to an overwhelmed parent. I think we have a blind spot when it comes to our own families.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

We absolutely do.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

We assume service has to be directed at strangers in a soup kitchen to count as a divine calling, but carrying the burden for a family member who is drowning in their own daily life requires just as much selflessness, and sometimes more, because families come with complex histories and baggage.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

It requires immense grace. And whether it is your family, your neighbor, or a few hours a week at a local food bank, if we connect this to the bigger picture, the cumulative effect of these microactions serves a critical structural function for the individual.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

It provides a stabilizing routine.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Yes. When you wake up and know there is a small, specific way you're going to be useful to someone else today, it wards off the existential dread of an empty calendar. You are building that legacy of compassion brick by brick in the quiet moments that no one else will ever applaud.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

Which is the perfect segue to the final concept the source material explores, the outward trajectory of all this. Because everything we've analyzed so far has been about the internal mechanics of the giver, you know, the anxiety reduction, the ego death, the sense of purpose. But the ultimate result of these daily faith-driven actions extends far beyond the two people involved in the immediate interaction.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

The authors delve into the sociological reality of the ripple effect. They note that service is deeply inherently contagious. When you help one person, especially when you do it without expectation of a transaction, it is neurologically shocking to the recipient.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Right, because nobody does that anymore.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Exactly. In a modern world that is highly polarized, highly isolated, and driven by profit motives, experiencing a genuinely selfless act of goodwill disrupts a person's cynicism. It restores a baseline of social trust.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

It changes the recipient's entire posture toward the world that day.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

It does. And because their faith in humanity has been slightly restored, they are statistically far more likely to turn around and extend that same grace to the next person they encounter. A single quiet act of microservice can literally initiate a wave of goodwill that alters the psychological environment of an entire community.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

That's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

And for the senior initiating that ripple, aligning their daily actions with their core spiritual values brings a lasting structural contentment that no amount of self-optimization or leisure could ever replicate.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

So, what does this all mean for you listening right now? We started this deep dive talking about the paradox of the mirror versus the window, the societal trap of constantly looking inward, analyzing our own anxieties, and trying to optimize our way into feeling relevant again. But if the research is right, the answer isn't in the mirror at all. The answer is found when we force quit our internal monitoring apps and look through the window at what the people around us actually need. If goodwill truly is a social contagion, it makes you wonder who is out there right now waiting to catch the ripple of your actions? Could the smallest, quietest, most seemingly insignificant thing you do this afternoon, fixing a hinge on a door, making a five-minute phone call to simply listen to a friend, or carrying a bag of groceries, could that be the exact anchor that saves someone else's entire week?

SPEAKER_01 16:24

It is the most powerful question you can ask yourself as you approach your later years. And the beauty of this framework is that you do not need permission, funding, or a grand plan to find out the answer. If you found today's Deep Ride helpful, the editorial team at the Encore Project is constantly publishing new, fantastic resources examining the intersection of faith, purpose, and aging.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

Highly recommend checking them out.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

Absolutely. You can find their entire library of research at the Ncor Project.org. They have fresh content arriving weekly, so it is absolutely worth making it a habit to return and see what insights they uncover next.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Take that first small step toward joyful service today. Stop taking your own emotional temperature. Put down the mirror, look through the window, and see who is out there waiting for exactly what you already know how to give.