A LESSON IN BEING SELFLESS

For a second, I felt a bit ashamed of myself because I couldn’t remember the last time I volunteered to help someone and that goes against me and who I am and pray to be like. Maybe I have volunteered to help people but I don’t see those things as helping or maybe I have really just never volunteered to help someone in a while now. Normally, I’m always grateful when I have the opportunity to be of help to someone or people but then, I know there has been times when I had the opportunity but I didn’t use it.

Growing up as a child, volunteering to do things was really normal for me. I enjoyed it because of so many reasons and they are quite interesting reasons. As a child, I worried about some things like, how life will be for my siblings and I without our mom. And that is because I have seen so many children and how they ended up becoming spoilt because their parents were separated. I was determined to change the usual. Back then, even now, a lot of persons believe that when they don’t have both of their parents with them, it’s a yardstick for them to do whatever they like.

I saw volunteering as a way to improve on my life and behavior generally. And naturally, the more I did those things, it also helped my siblings want to do the same because there were some obvious benefits from helping out. Now I know you’re wondering how volunteering to help others helped me to improve my life and behavior. Well, it simple. In my head, I was just so sure that by always helping out, it will attract people to my siblings and I to always want to give us advice and help us in some ways that we would have needed our mom.

I’m not sure how I got that idea, but I’m very sure it can only be God because it worked out really well. The more I helped people do things, the more they prayed and advised me about life, the more I learnt how to do some things better and the more I grew. It was so nice because it was part of the reasons I was also able to learn and grow like someone who had both parents. I believe that volunteering to help people or community is one of the best ways to improve on ourselves as humans because I have experienced it first hand.

The last time I volunteered to help someone was last year. It was on a sunny day and I saw this lady struggling to carry a bag all by herself. I had already walked past her because I was really tired from that day’s class and also the heat from the scorching sun. After walking a few steps away from her, I struggled with my mind that it won’t take me anything to turn back and help her out. Normally, for the fact that I have passed her, that was more than enough reason to be convinced to just go my way but I turned back and she was amazed.

I helped her to a place where she wanted to board a vehicle and we said our goodbyes even as she thanked me for what I did. To me, that wasn’t anything but it became something because I was able to turn back to help her. I was so happy that day about what I did and I hoped to do more. Indeed, there are a lot of joy from dedicating your time, energy and even money to helping others without expecting anything in return. When you do so, you not only feel happy and proud of yourself, but you also learn and grow in the process and I will say that is a lot.

I plan to always volunteer to help as soon as the opportunity comes. Although I know sometimes I might want to consider my own comfort but I hope that the next opportunity I get, I won’t trade it for anything that is not worth it. The truth is, if I don’t render that help, someone else will and they will be the one to feel satisfied and happy, hehe.

This is my response to the Hivelearners topic on ”VOLUNTEERING AND COMMUNITY WORK”.