Coming from a family that is creative, involved and energetic, I didn’t realize that not everyone volunteers on committees and events.
When I was a young adult, it seemed I had a meeting every evening of the week. This required having routines and organization. I didn’t know this at the time and didn’t realize it necessarily, but I got a whole lot more of the day-to-day things done then than I do now that I’ve slowed down.
There would be play practice a few evenings a week for these months, event committee meetings once a month, then once a week during that time of the year, church committee meetings quarterly, golf tournaments to help organize a couple of times a year, school meetings for my son… You get the idea. I loved it. I felt useful.
If I had a few days idle I felt lazy and did not do downtime or relax well at all. I
remember one day my boss, Sid Miner, took a small group of us to the golf course,
Country Club at the time, to teach us some basic golf technics. Everyone was having a blast, after about an hour, I couldn’t take it and said if you don’t care, I could get my lawn mowed before supper if I head home now. I did not know how to enjoy relaxing. I guess I didn’t know how to relax. Boy, has that changed over the decades.
Another time I was riding along on some trip with one of my sisters and she said, “you’ll probably never retire. You can’t slow down. I bet you work until you can’t.” Do you know what my response was? Something like “oh YES I will! If I didn’t have to go to work every day I could help more at church, or help more at United Way or something.”
No matter what group, organization or committee a person is involved with it seems there are a core 8 – 10 people who you can count on and who always are there. But guess what, people do get tired, they do get older. More volunteers need to step up. I challenge you to consider volunteering on some committee or organization! It feels great! It could be delivering groceries for someone on the Care To Share List, taking a meal to someone who needs a little help, serving on a committee at church, taking the neighbor kids to the park so that mom can have an hour to herself occasionally or helping with the Elks Youth Fishing Derby. Not everyone has to be the leader; worker bees are needed every bit as much.
Just try it! Let me know how it goes.
