According to the Romanian language dictionary, to act voluntarily means to act on one’s own initiative, without being constrained. Being a volunteer means allocating time resources to a cause you identify with emotionally, believe in, and are willing to act. It is also said that you have discovered your vocation and purpose on this earth if you are willing to do voluntary actions related to your training and for which you would normally have paid. And in an ideal society, we would probably all be volunteers.
I found on the Map of volunteering in Romania a number of 700 organizations registered on an online platform, developed by the VOLUM Federation, an initiative to encourage and promote volunteering at the national level regardless of age. I find it such a brilliant initiative in Romania, because I believe that we have an enormous potential to increase the involvement of citizens in volunteer activities in all fields. Volunteering is a way to make new friends, to help correct social problems, to develop as an individual. And I think that we, the Romanians, have a margin of evolution in all these directions.
You may be wondering why you would invest your time in unpaid activities that you may not earn anything from at first glance. Because, isn’t it ?! The society we live in is more and more focused on this philosophy of life: what do I get out of it?
Well, there are a lot of advantages and I will mention at least a few of them:
- Volunteering gives us the opportunity to feel useful and to increase our confidence. We have the opportunity to support causes we believe in, to take action, to help. Volunteering can give us that sense of usefulness by waking us up in the morning knowing that we will be able to make a difference for the better in the society in which we live.
- Volunteering helps fight stress because it keeps us in regular contact with others and helps us develop a strong self-help system, which in turn protects us from depression. Volunteering makes us happier. By measuring hormones and brain activity, researchers have found that being useful to others brings immense pleasure. When you channel your energy to help someone else you are less tense, it gives you a sense of belonging and makes you more confident in your own strength. Human beings are set to support others. The more we give, the happier we feel.
- Another advantage is that volunteering allows us to contribute to the development of the community we belong to and make it a better place, which can give us a deep sense of accomplishment. We don’t need to do extraordinary things, even the smallest contribution can make a difference in the lives of those in the community, in the environment, it can allow us to meet new people and strengthen relationships with people who share common values.
- Volunteering can help us progress in our careers because it can give us the opportunity to meet people in the field that interests us, to gain experience in our areas of interest or it can simply give us the opportunity to put into practice acquired skills over time, such as: teamwork, communication skills, problem solving, project planning, management and organization of tasks.
- Volunteering can bring us pleasure and fulfillment in our personal life, coming as a relaxing and energizing escape from the daily routine from work, school, or family commitments. Volunteering also gives us creativity, motivation and vision that can later flow into our personal and professional lives. Many people volunteer to find a way to spend their free time outside of work. For example, if you have an office job and want to spend time outdoors, you might consider volunteering to help plant a community garden, walk dogs to a pet shelter, or a children’s camp.
Think about the reasons why you would like to volunteer.
What would you like to do? What makes you unhappy when you look around and what would you like to change? We cannot claim that things will work out on their own, or that the authorities will be so efficient as to solve all the world’s problems without help. The only way to make sure that you are working on solutions for the cause you are concerned about is to roll up your sleeves and get personally involved. At the end of the day, you will fall asleep thinking that you have helped solve a problem that affects thousands of people. There are hundreds of social causes that are worth your time, whether they are homeless, victims of domestic violence, or people who are forced to beg. And volunteers are an essential part of the mechanism for correcting these injustices.
As Mahatma Gandhi urged us, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
