Even in the midst of the season of love, compassion and generosity, We, both societally and individually, seem to be conflicted when it comes to the subject of service!
Many believe that service should be done secretively and without any notion of reward or taking any measure of credit. They subscribe to the biblical idea of " not letting your left hand know what your right hand is doing." It is seen as being a braggart or being manipulative to speak of your generosity or chartiableness.
Yet, Organizations such as The Red Cross count up the numbers of hours their volunteers serve and honor them for that. Numerous organizations have banquets to celebrate their volunteers. We just finished an entire month where, in part, we honor those who give and give and give EVEN BEYOND that!
Service, to me. is to be honored. We know that it is something we want to see people do more. We know that there are needs that people can profitably and successfully overcome with "A LITTLE HELP from THEIR FRIENDS!" Someone committed to serving you and invested with you in common cause to improve your life can be rightly considered to be a friend!
If you serve JUST and SOLELY just to have people honor you and sing your praises, Then you would do well to reconsider why you are doing what you are doing. I think that such preening and overweening egomanicalness is extremely rare. For most of us, We volunteer because we are moved to help and to be the very best that we can be! That is something worthy of being honored and it is an attitude that benefits ALL OF US !
One last aside - Some people refer to people as being " just volunteers". Money does not determine whether something is a productive or a useless activity! To me, Just is a word that has no right to be connected to the word "volunteer"!
- Johnny -
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