Life goals...I don't have any...And I don't want them so take the prospect of them away!!!!!!!
Ok, just kidding. Kind of. The other day, after months of lackluster ambition, I suddenly had a windfall of it. Apparently, my brain decided it was like New Years resolution time before April Fools Day (gotta love the irony there). So, I made a bunch of resolutions.
One of them is to volunteer at least once a week. I found newyorkcares.org which is awesome because you can volunteer whenever you want. You go to an orientation, then you search through their volunteer projects and find a day and time that work for you. You don't have to commit to going more than one time to a project and they have a bunch of options. I've already been to two. The first was coloring with first graders and the second was talking English with immigrants.
I've volunteered on and off ever since high school. Sometimes volunteering sucks, not going to lie. Maybe the people you work with you don't particularly like or maybe the assignment sucks or maybe it's just not you for some reason, but more often than not, it's pretty good. I did data entry in a hospital as a teenager (suuuuuucked - so boring), Berkeley Youth Alternatives (such a good group - the kids were great), Cal Corps for a weekend in the Tenderloin in SF (also awesome), WorldTeach (one of the biggest learning experiences of my life), interning at Human Rights Watch (look at me copy things! But still a great learning experience and exposure to so much knowledge it was ridiculous), School on Wheels in CA (I didn't do this for very long but it is a really great organization), and Nuevos Horizontes in Guatemala (really, really good group! The kids are so sweet and I can't even put into words what a perspective I gained from it). I'll provide links because all these organizations could always have more help :)
I don't think of volunteering as good or bad. It just kind of is. When I'm really busy, I don't have the energy to volunteer. Working with kids always makes me feel good because they are just naturally themselves and that makes you be yourself. I feel that (this is probably going to be a bad metaphor like all my metaphors are...I apologize in advance) volunteering is like my vegetarianism/ quasi-veganism: it's just part of who I am, not good, not bad. I never really liked meat as a kid. I would take the pork out of the pork and potato casserole my mom made. I hated fish because it smelled bad and refused to eat it. I even took the cheese off my pizza as a kid (I know, who does that, right? Apparently, me). I never really liked eggs. I just kind of accept that I'm a vegetarian not out of some moral disposition but because, hey I just don't really want to eat meat and dairy and I aren't the best of friends. I like sweet things, though, and if you get between me and chocolate, you will end up with injuries. But yea, volunteering is the same - it's just part of who I am. Not good, not bad. Just is.
Links! Support these places because they are AWESOME!!
http://www.byaonline.org/
http://publicservice.berkeley.edu/
http://www.hrw.org/
http://www.worldteach.org/
http://www.schoolonwheels.org/
http://www.ahnh.org/
http://www.newyorkcares.org/
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