Service before self- this comes when a person believes in a concept so much that his love of life becomes secondary. Otherwise known as martyrdom. Idealized by many, practiced by few, the "service before self" mind-set is put on a pedestal because the reality of it is that it is one of the most difficult things to do consistently.
Person after person has come to face the realization that they could live longer- and possibly happier- lives, if they had eased up on their "service". Jesus Christ even had to deal with that choice in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Life held so much for that man. He could have stood up and walked away from it all, prophesies be damned. And lived in personal shame for the rest of his life.
More often than not, man can bypass the love of self for service at short intervals. Kurt was an undersheriff in Newton. He quit the force, yet came back to it. He put service before self one night last April and walked into a hostage situation. He was killed, because for a brief moment, self was secondary.
When service before self happens, heroes are born. Some even survive. A. is a rescue diver. He was the last to get out of the water when a boat sank one November. It was a media circus. The guys did their job, what they were trained to do, but you can't say that he and his companions weren't seriously reconsidering their choice of service before self with the waves beating the helicopter in the middle of the night.
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