STO is automatic, STS requires the choice?

[redchartreuse]

It's an interesting pondering!  As for feedback, I would suggest that:

in that if you do no action others will use you towards their goals and that will eventually land you at 100% STO,

is a big, yet understandable, oversimplification of the idea of service.

Since we are multidimensional beings, the question here to consider is which aspect of the other are we serving?

Are we serving the "personality shell" which says it wants to spend its life sitting on the couch getting fat eating bonbons and watching "reality" TV?

Or are we serving the indwelling soul, which (according to Ra and Q'uo) took an incarnation with the primary purpose being to spiritually evolve?

Consider how many of us define a "good friend" as one who sits there and nods and smiles approvingly while we make incoherent arguments to support our erroneous (and often hateful) belief systems, or who consider it "being supportive" to blindly back every capricious and harebrained (and possibly self-destructive) idea we have.  Or who is willing to sit there and play sad violin riffs while we recount one victim story after the next about ourselves, only pausing to interject "Aw you poor thing!"

Essentially, being no more than a "Yes Man" is what many of us want from our friends and family.  Challenging another's beliefs, or questioning their motives, is seen as an "attack" and we like to accuse others of "bringing us down" and "raining on our parade" when they don't kowtow to our little ego's childish wants and demands.

I don't know if you know of anybody who suffers from bipolar disorder, but in my experience trying to deal with someone in a manic phase is a great example of this.  When they are all spun up and engaging in risky behaviors that could bring harm to themselves and others, people in a manic state are nearly impervious to any kind of attempt to help them back into a more balanced state.   Trying to talk them down, or redirect their energy into something more constructive is almost always met with accusations of "you're trying to control me!" and "you are judging me!" and "you don't really care about what I want!" and of course there's always that trump card hanging out in their back pocket:  "This is WHO I AM, and if you REALLY loved me, you would just LET ME BE!"

It's even more rich when somebody tries to twist Ra's spiritual philosophy of "acceptance" into meaning that we should just sit there and allow people to be destructive to themselves and others, for fear that we might "lose our polarity" in attempting to steer them onto a more constructive path.  Cause, you know, speaking any word or taking any action that is contrary to another person's agenda is "trying to control" them.  

So, no, I wouldn't agree that simply allowing others to "use you towards their goals" is STO at all.  It's actually quite self-serving in the sense that it's much easier to garner approval from others by being a doormat they can wipe their muddy boots on as they march off to their next exploitation of self and others, all the while calling you a "loyal friend."  With a little digging into the motives, it can be seen that people who do this are too cowardly to pursue their own goals, and so the next best thing for them is to be somebody else's "wing man" and hope that some of their ill-gotten spoils get shared with them for "being such a good friend" once the dust has settled from their latest pillage and plunder expedition.

I think just about anybody with a child can clearly see that simply "giving them what they want" whenever they ask for it, does not result in a healthy attitude, and it certainly doesn't result in adults who are in any way serious about service, or giving back to others and the community.  Unless, of course, the so-called "parent" hasn't evolved past their own immature and impish impulses, and is essentially using their child to justify their own lack of growth and maturity.