Jul 10
2
My last post was about volunteering. I thought I would give my latest example of volunteering.
A few weekends ago, I got up at 5:45am on a Saturday to help out at a fun run in downtown Colorado Springs, CO. It is called Sailin’ Shoes. I was a “water-hander-outer” (I am SURE that was the official term) at a double station, about 4 k and 6k into the 10K race.
I showed up at the location around 6:15am. We started filling water cups and lining them up along the route. Once the race started, we all grabbed a few cups, holding one out. I learned that giving a flimsy water cup to a person who is running is VERY difficult. It was a good thing it warmed up fast, because I was pretty wet.
I was the front person on one side of the street. I also learned that the people who want water will grab it from the first person they see every time, so I handed out more water than the rest of the people behind me combined. People would actually stop running to wait for me to shuffle cups between hands, even though there were a half dozen people at the ready behind me. Weird. And I also discovered that you can get prune-like fingers when you are standing outside fully clothed, holding cups of water for extended periods of time.
What they didn’t mention in the organization meeting we had a few nights previous, is that water-hander-outer is only part of the job. We also yelled and encouraged the runners as they came down the street. At first, it was kind of embarrassing, but after a bit (especially after you get a big smile from a runner), you get into it. It was fun to cheer them on, knowing that they weren’t even half way done running over 6 miles, and feeling a bit sorry for them. I also felt bad, because we were on a residential street yelling at 7am on a Saturday. Glad I don’t live there! =-)
It was all over by about 8:15am. I got in my car to drive home, feeling good about life. I was inspired to run, had accomplished something that made the world a bit better (even if it was just to a handful of thirsty runners), and all before I normally would be awake. It was a beautiful day, the sun shining through the trees as I drove through one of the most beautiful parts of Colorado Springs.When I got home that day, I was more productive than I had been in the past month.
While driving home, I was thinking about the fun and interesting volunteers I met, and all the people running. I want to be a runner. I try often, but tend to give up when it gets hard. I was thinking about how I wanted to be more like “those cool people”, and then, in the quiet beauty of a Saturday morning, I suddenly decided I would stop wanting and wishing, and start doing. Corny, I know, but since that day a few weeks ago, I have tried to have a more positive attitude everyday (hard for a pessimist like myself), and to accomplish some things on my To Do list. And I have been happier. I don’t know if it qualifies as happy, happy, but for the last few months I have been so focused on the negative, and so I can tell the difference.
I don’t know if all of this came about because of the actual volunteering, being up so early, or just happened, but that day has had an impact on my life, at least short term. I am running again, and working to improve my attitude towards life. I feel like I got more out the day than I gave. And that is the beauty of volunteering. Plus I got a nifty T-shirt.
Volunteering, as well as doing any other type of pastime, has something important iiside, as it teaches about limits you really have instead of limits you should have.
The reason why volunteering is so important is because it happens outside of social standards as we know them, which are supposedly necessary to supply social stability.
Well those notions have been packaged to be easily sold to the population but do not represent anything more than an effort to control the said population to certain behaviors that are known to profit certain interests, that sponsored the concept in the first place in most cases.
What we learn iduring volunteer work is that human creativity and adaptation possibilities are far more efficient than the social conventions we usually take for standards of human possibilities in daily life.
Humans are able to far more possibilities than existing social conventions contend for, and that should be something reassuring, considering the challenges we will have to go through, if we ever take the challenge to survive as a species, to take this example.
So, volunteering is important, as much as a teaching tool about our true nature, as it is a relief to those who immediately benefit from that volunteer activity we’re immediately performing at the moment we’re doing it.
So, have a good day thinking about your volunteer activities and about the thrills you get in performing them.