Criticisms of V
Criticisms of Volunteerism
“Every person is born into life as a blank page- and every person leaves life as a full book” (Baldwin xi). From the moment we are born, it is our duty to make those pages have meaning. What is your purpose? This is not a question that can be answered overnight. This is the answer that derives from a lifetime of love, hate, happiness, sadness, and experience. The meaning of our lives it not even an answer we can find ourselves. It is for other people to look back and reflect when we are gone. What do you want to be remembered by? One of the best ways to find meaning in our life is through volunteer work. Through helping others, we gain experience. This raises the question of whether it is morally right to conduct volunteer work. Volunteer work can be seen as selfish because it makes us feel better about ourselves and distracts us from the troubles in our own lives; however, volunteer work benefits society. This paradox is important to study because it helps us establish unique morals and ethics. Reading, discussing, and learning from volunteer criticisms is vital to building our stories that shape ourselves, the people around us, and our community.
Critiquing volunteerism helps us shape ourselves because we begin to understand our own morals and beliefs. The only way to make these discoveries is to question our actions. As the “What? So What? Now What?” questions state, “What impacts the way you view the situation/ experience?”. Reflection is vital to community service because this is when we start to fill those blank pages. Learning from an expierence can change the next chapters in our book, “through a process of reflection and rethinking, how we have not completed our past and unintentionally keep bringing it into the future” (Block 15) we can see how we can better ourselves. There is a reason that community service is considered “punishment” for people who get in trouble with the law. Performing community service naturally makes us begin to reevaluate our lives. As Davis states, “anyone who has served or been served by another- in short, anyone- testify to the range of feelings such an exchange produces: serving someone, I might feel close to that person or ashamed at how close I am someone I do not know… this range of possible feelings attests to the fact service is complex as well as deep” (Davis 4). It makes us want to be better people because we feel good and do not want to lose that feeling. Volunteer work and community service gives us a purpose. Every human craves the sense of belonging into something bigger than themselves. This all ties back to how we are trying to make our stories have some kind of meaning.
On a personal level, volunteer work has helped me shape myself because it has made me appreciate my life more. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, it states, “until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing”. This quote is relevant because before working at an Alzheimer’s nursing home, I did not appreciate thinking. Having the freedom to have our own cohesive thoughts is a gift. Realizing how much I have makes it hard to feel sorry for myself, a concept discussed in, The Heart and the Fist, which stated “She gently suggested that my problems paled next to the refugees’ and I snapped out of my selfish concern” (Greitens 56). I do not want my story to be about myself. When I die one day, I want someone to tell my story and describe me as a girl who did not just care about herself. I want a story worth telling. I make my story worthy by questioning my actions and learning from them every chance I get. This ties into the purpose of why I do volunteer work. It makes me feel like I am doing something productive with my life thus it makes me feel happy. Some would argue that it is selfish to conduct volunteer work if you are doing it partially to make yourself happy. I believe that type of thinking is narrow minded. There is always a bigger picture. In terms of volunteer work making a person feel happy- there are lots of ways to make yourself feel happy. A person can do drugs, drink alcohol, they can vacation, go shopping, or a plethora of other activities- but they chose to do volunteer work. Choosing volunteer work shows that you revolve your happiness around others feeling good and there is nothing wrong with that.
A deeper look into volunteerism also shapes the people around us because we live our lives to influence others in some way. In life, we build relationships to help fill our blank pages and make space into their pages well. “What you leave you behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others” (Greitens 10). Our meaning in life is to impact others so we can leave something behind and help the people around us. We are all trying to build a story. The reason people are trying to build a story is to tell their story. “In the act of telling a story, we create a world we invite others into” (Baldwin 11). People have stories so we can connect with others. It is important to understand others so we can influence their lives more. As To Kill a Mockingbird states, “you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it”. Volunteer work gives us that opportunity. Through helping others, we are able to see how other people live, how they are creating their story. Are they a leader or follower in their community? The answer could influence what kind of person you want to become.
Another important reason to shape other people is to open our hearts to them. “To me, what we do is-well, it’s us trying to offer something from our hearts” (Coles 48). Volunteer work is more than just the garbage picked up, the houses built, and the time spent- it is about making people want to be the best version of themselves. In life, it is really easy to feel lost. When someone does something for you, it reminds you that there is someone looking out for you- there is someone who cares about you. For example, the other day, I was having a rough time because I had two exams and stayed up late the night before. I was returning from the math emporium and ran back to my room for my next class which started in five minutes. When I entered the room, I saw my roommate, Shannon, had made my bed and left a note on my stuffed animal telling me I was going to get through the day and we could have a dance party after my last class. My roommate always makes me feel important because she texts me to remind me to eat when I am stressed out and forget to eat, makes me put in my contacts every day, and encourages me to get past my bad days. The feeling of knowing someone is taking time out their day to care for me makes me feel good. Through volunteer work, we show people that we take time out of our day to care for the people we are serving. So again, that is why I do volunteer work. I want to make people feel how Shannon makes me feel when I return to the room after a long day to see a little note. It is the little things that mean the most- even just spending five minutes listening to someone talk about their problem means a lot. When people feel loved, it makes them want to get through their bad times. It is important to want to get through your bad times because it makes you strong. This is vital because a community can only be as strong as its people.
The last reason it is important to critique volunteerism is that the community can only be shaped if they want to help themselves. A community is only as strong as the people living there. “First, all the history evidence indicates that significant community development takes place only when local community people are committed to investing themselves and their resources in the effort” (Krertzmann and McKnight 25). For example, in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina the community was able to recover not because of outside help solely, but the New Orleans natives who refused to leave or give up. These people built a story for New Orleans. Instead of becoming a washed away forgotten city, it was able to rebuild to become almost as the strong community they once were. New Orleans was also able to create this story because of volunteerism and community service from outside help. Even though they were slow, without the government workers, they would have never had the resources to survive and tell their story.
Some places are hesitant to receive outside help, such as Monsignor Ivan Illich who stated, “I am here to entreat you to use your money, your status and your education to travel in Latin America. Come to look, come to climb our mountains, to enjoy our flowers. Come to study. But do not come to help” (Illich 6). It is important to help even when it is not completely wanted because there is strength in every person in the world. Every person has some kind of light shining inside of them. At the same note, we all have something in common, “each of us, myself included, is participating in creating this world” (Block xi). As a whole, we are creating a story for this world. What kind of story do we want this world to have? Hypothetically, if another life form were to study our planet and the people who inhabited it thousands of years after we go extinct- what would they see? A community varies in size, and we are all a part of many communities: our school, hometown, state, country, and planet. We are all one at the end of the day.
In conclusion, that’s why I’m here. I am here to fill the blank pages of my own, my neighbor’s, and my community’s stories. The stories should have a greater meaning and purpose. Volunteer criticism is important to learn why our stories are created the way they are. I want my story to change at least one person in some way, but I am only eighteen years old. It feels strange saying “only eighteen” as some people don’t even get to live up to this age. I am eighteen and have so much left to expierence. I have so many people to still be inspired by and so many people to still impact. The idea is thrilling and terrifying and that mix of emotions makes me want to move into the future. I am excited to gain the expierence to learn how to help people aside from schoolwork. As The Heart and The Fist stated, “I might not have been able to change the world as a student, but I knew I needed to live through something hard and real to become better” (Greiden 27). Expierence is what fills ours stories and makes them into something commendable. I want to be proud of who I am, who I associate myself with, and where I live. Everyday we are filling our stories, so we must always keep the question in mind- what do we want our story to say?
Works Cited
Baldwin, Christina. Storycatcher: Making Sense of Our Lives through the Power and Practice of Story. Novato: New World Library, 2007. Print.
Block, Peter. Community: The Structure of Belonging. San Francisco: Berret-
Koehler Publishers, 2008. Print.
Block, Peter. "From leadership to citizenship." Insights on Leadership: Service, Stewardship, Spirit, and Servant-leadership. Ed. Larry C. Spears,New York: Wiley,1998. 87-95. Print.
Coles, Robert. The Call of Service. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1994. Print.
Davis, Adams. “What We Don’t Talk about When We Don’t Talk about Service.” The Civically Engaged Reader: A Diverse Collection of Short Provocative Readings on Civic Activity. Ed. Davis, Adams & Elizabeth Lynn, Chicago:Great Books Foundation, 2006. 148-154. Print.
Greitens, Eric. The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011. Print.
Illich, Ivan. "To hell with good intentions." An Address to the Conference on InterAmerican Student Projects (CIASP) in Cuernavaca, Mexico, on April. Vol. 20. 1968.
Kretzmann, John, and John P. McKnight. "Assets‐based community development." National Civic Review 85.4 (1996): 23-29.
Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1960. Print.
“Every person is born into life as a blank page- and every person leaves life as a full book” (Baldwin xi). From the moment we are born, it is our duty to make those pages have meaning. What is your purpose? This is not a question that can be answered overnight. This is the answer that derives from a lifetime of love, hate, happiness, sadness, and experience. The meaning of our lives it not even an answer we can find ourselves. It is for other people to look back and reflect when we are gone. What do you want to be remembered by? One of the best ways to find meaning in our life is through volunteer work. Through helping others, we gain experience. This raises the question of whether it is morally right to conduct volunteer work. Volunteer work can be seen as selfish because it makes us feel better about ourselves and distracts us from the troubles in our own lives; however, volunteer work benefits society. This paradox is important to study because it helps us establish unique morals and ethics. Reading, discussing, and learning from volunteer criticisms is vital to building our stories that shape ourselves, the people around us, and our community.
Critiquing volunteerism helps us shape ourselves because we begin to understand our own morals and beliefs. The only way to make these discoveries is to question our actions. As the “What? So What? Now What?” questions state, “What impacts the way you view the situation/ experience?”. Reflection is vital to community service because this is when we start to fill those blank pages. Learning from an expierence can change the next chapters in our book, “through a process of reflection and rethinking, how we have not completed our past and unintentionally keep bringing it into the future” (Block 15) we can see how we can better ourselves. There is a reason that community service is considered “punishment” for people who get in trouble with the law. Performing community service naturally makes us begin to reevaluate our lives. As Davis states, “anyone who has served or been served by another- in short, anyone- testify to the range of feelings such an exchange produces: serving someone, I might feel close to that person or ashamed at how close I am someone I do not know… this range of possible feelings attests to the fact service is complex as well as deep” (Davis 4). It makes us want to be better people because we feel good and do not want to lose that feeling. Volunteer work and community service gives us a purpose. Every human craves the sense of belonging into something bigger than themselves. This all ties back to how we are trying to make our stories have some kind of meaning.
On a personal level, volunteer work has helped me shape myself because it has made me appreciate my life more. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, it states, “until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing”. This quote is relevant because before working at an Alzheimer’s nursing home, I did not appreciate thinking. Having the freedom to have our own cohesive thoughts is a gift. Realizing how much I have makes it hard to feel sorry for myself, a concept discussed in, The Heart and the Fist, which stated “She gently suggested that my problems paled next to the refugees’ and I snapped out of my selfish concern” (Greitens 56). I do not want my story to be about myself. When I die one day, I want someone to tell my story and describe me as a girl who did not just care about herself. I want a story worth telling. I make my story worthy by questioning my actions and learning from them every chance I get. This ties into the purpose of why I do volunteer work. It makes me feel like I am doing something productive with my life thus it makes me feel happy. Some would argue that it is selfish to conduct volunteer work if you are doing it partially to make yourself happy. I believe that type of thinking is narrow minded. There is always a bigger picture. In terms of volunteer work making a person feel happy- there are lots of ways to make yourself feel happy. A person can do drugs, drink alcohol, they can vacation, go shopping, or a plethora of other activities- but they chose to do volunteer work. Choosing volunteer work shows that you revolve your happiness around others feeling good and there is nothing wrong with that.
A deeper look into volunteerism also shapes the people around us because we live our lives to influence others in some way. In life, we build relationships to help fill our blank pages and make space into their pages well. “What you leave you behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others” (Greitens 10). Our meaning in life is to impact others so we can leave something behind and help the people around us. We are all trying to build a story. The reason people are trying to build a story is to tell their story. “In the act of telling a story, we create a world we invite others into” (Baldwin 11). People have stories so we can connect with others. It is important to understand others so we can influence their lives more. As To Kill a Mockingbird states, “you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it”. Volunteer work gives us that opportunity. Through helping others, we are able to see how other people live, how they are creating their story. Are they a leader or follower in their community? The answer could influence what kind of person you want to become.
Another important reason to shape other people is to open our hearts to them. “To me, what we do is-well, it’s us trying to offer something from our hearts” (Coles 48). Volunteer work is more than just the garbage picked up, the houses built, and the time spent- it is about making people want to be the best version of themselves. In life, it is really easy to feel lost. When someone does something for you, it reminds you that there is someone looking out for you- there is someone who cares about you. For example, the other day, I was having a rough time because I had two exams and stayed up late the night before. I was returning from the math emporium and ran back to my room for my next class which started in five minutes. When I entered the room, I saw my roommate, Shannon, had made my bed and left a note on my stuffed animal telling me I was going to get through the day and we could have a dance party after my last class. My roommate always makes me feel important because she texts me to remind me to eat when I am stressed out and forget to eat, makes me put in my contacts every day, and encourages me to get past my bad days. The feeling of knowing someone is taking time out their day to care for me makes me feel good. Through volunteer work, we show people that we take time out of our day to care for the people we are serving. So again, that is why I do volunteer work. I want to make people feel how Shannon makes me feel when I return to the room after a long day to see a little note. It is the little things that mean the most- even just spending five minutes listening to someone talk about their problem means a lot. When people feel loved, it makes them want to get through their bad times. It is important to want to get through your bad times because it makes you strong. This is vital because a community can only be as strong as its people.
The last reason it is important to critique volunteerism is that the community can only be shaped if they want to help themselves. A community is only as strong as the people living there. “First, all the history evidence indicates that significant community development takes place only when local community people are committed to investing themselves and their resources in the effort” (Krertzmann and McKnight 25). For example, in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina the community was able to recover not because of outside help solely, but the New Orleans natives who refused to leave or give up. These people built a story for New Orleans. Instead of becoming a washed away forgotten city, it was able to rebuild to become almost as the strong community they once were. New Orleans was also able to create this story because of volunteerism and community service from outside help. Even though they were slow, without the government workers, they would have never had the resources to survive and tell their story.
Some places are hesitant to receive outside help, such as Monsignor Ivan Illich who stated, “I am here to entreat you to use your money, your status and your education to travel in Latin America. Come to look, come to climb our mountains, to enjoy our flowers. Come to study. But do not come to help” (Illich 6). It is important to help even when it is not completely wanted because there is strength in every person in the world. Every person has some kind of light shining inside of them. At the same note, we all have something in common, “each of us, myself included, is participating in creating this world” (Block xi). As a whole, we are creating a story for this world. What kind of story do we want this world to have? Hypothetically, if another life form were to study our planet and the people who inhabited it thousands of years after we go extinct- what would they see? A community varies in size, and we are all a part of many communities: our school, hometown, state, country, and planet. We are all one at the end of the day.
In conclusion, that’s why I’m here. I am here to fill the blank pages of my own, my neighbor’s, and my community’s stories. The stories should have a greater meaning and purpose. Volunteer criticism is important to learn why our stories are created the way they are. I want my story to change at least one person in some way, but I am only eighteen years old. It feels strange saying “only eighteen” as some people don’t even get to live up to this age. I am eighteen and have so much left to expierence. I have so many people to still be inspired by and so many people to still impact. The idea is thrilling and terrifying and that mix of emotions makes me want to move into the future. I am excited to gain the expierence to learn how to help people aside from schoolwork. As The Heart and The Fist stated, “I might not have been able to change the world as a student, but I knew I needed to live through something hard and real to become better” (Greiden 27). Expierence is what fills ours stories and makes them into something commendable. I want to be proud of who I am, who I associate myself with, and where I live. Everyday we are filling our stories, so we must always keep the question in mind- what do we want our story to say?
Works Cited
Baldwin, Christina. Storycatcher: Making Sense of Our Lives through the Power and Practice of Story. Novato: New World Library, 2007. Print.
Block, Peter. Community: The Structure of Belonging. San Francisco: Berret-
Koehler Publishers, 2008. Print.
Block, Peter. "From leadership to citizenship." Insights on Leadership: Service, Stewardship, Spirit, and Servant-leadership. Ed. Larry C. Spears,New York: Wiley,1998. 87-95. Print.
Coles, Robert. The Call of Service. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1994. Print.
Davis, Adams. “What We Don’t Talk about When We Don’t Talk about Service.” The Civically Engaged Reader: A Diverse Collection of Short Provocative Readings on Civic Activity. Ed. Davis, Adams & Elizabeth Lynn, Chicago:Great Books Foundation, 2006. 148-154. Print.
Greitens, Eric. The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011. Print.
Illich, Ivan. "To hell with good intentions." An Address to the Conference on InterAmerican Student Projects (CIASP) in Cuernavaca, Mexico, on April. Vol. 20. 1968.
Kretzmann, John, and John P. McKnight. "Assets‐based community development." National Civic Review 85.4 (1996): 23-29.
Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1960. Print.