Volunteering; Goal 7/8, Week 8

gah, procrastination is seriously killing me if I can barely keep up with one written blog post a week >.< Anyway.

When’s the last time you went out of your way to do extra work to help someone else out? The last time I volunteered was at a nursing home when I was 12 or 13. My grandma was in the home at the time, so I would stop by and play the piano for the people living there, and help out however I could for a few hours. I flat out refused to do more volunteer work after my grandma died, so here it is 6 or 7 years later. As part of my environmental biology class, we’re required to volunteer for something to help out the environment, and to write a paper on it. Reading that requirement I kind of grumbled a bit—the usual complaints; a waste of time, I probably have to wake up early, environmental stuff means I’ll be getting dirty, and so on and so forth. Then I stopped and thought about it. There were a few times in high school where I’d thought about volunteering, but had homework to do or college apps to fill out…and I realized something. I am really really good at procrastination.

Luckily, my assignment is forcing me to break that habit, so I’ll be volunteering this Saturday with a group that regularly meets to pick up trash. So my goal (7) is firstly to volunteer for something. My second goal of the week, though, is to sign up to the group so I find out when the next clean-up is, and will volunteer again (Goal 8, week 8). I want to get back into the swing of doing something good for the community around me, and giving back to the world that I’m living in. The thing is, there’s always a reason to put off volunteering, but there’s just this awesome feeling you get from doing it, knowing that you’re doing your part to help out. “It’s like getting dressed up, you never want to put the time in, but you feel great once you do.” (-theiceallmeltsaway)

So, goals 7 & 8, week 8: Volunteer somewhere, and make a point of doing it again in the near future. (kill procrastination!)

-M.