<p>" It makes me nauseous when my Asian friend tells about how he volunteers at the hospital and is a member of the Boy Scouts and teaches kids all this stuff. I just don't see the joy in such activities."</p>
<p>As a person who volunteers a lot, and has always volunteered a lot, I am disappointed to learn your viewpoint. I don't understand why you wouldn't want to volunteer to do something to make the world a better place. I have no clue what kind of person could be nauseated to hear about someone else's volunteer work.</p>
<p>I also wonder why if you think that volunteering is so awful, you yourself have posted on CC asking for others' advice. You have been the recipient of thoughtful advice several parents (including me) who responded to your post asking about financing college. All of those people were volunteering their time to help a stranger -- you. Does that nauseate you?</p>
<p>"No one likes volunteering. The percise reason for it is to do grunt work that makes you miserable and teaches you lessons that you can be a slave too. "</p>
<p>Lots of people, including me, like volunteering. Volunteering can range from so-called grunt work to chairing boards of major nonprofits (and doing this can require as much work as running a company) and organizing activities such as fundraisers or other projects that have thousands of participants. </p>
<p>I enjoy volunteering because I like to do things to help other people, and I also feel that I have benefited from many privileges that I didn't earn -- things like having the good luck to be born in the U.S. instead of in a repressive country or a country where due to poverty, there's little access to health care and education. </p>
<p>I also have found volunteering is a wonderful way to make new friends (some of whom may have been people whom I was helping), learn new skills, and brighten my days (Yes, volunteering really is fun -- if you have the good sense to volunteer with organizations that interest you, and to do work with those that matches your interests).</p>
<p>My current volunteer work includes: serving on the board of the local March of Dimes (delighted to do something to help reduce the numbers of preemies and kids with birth defects. Younger S was a preemie, and is alive in part because of research organizations like the March of Dimes funded), serving on a committee to select plays for a local community theater, planning a variety of social justice-related activities connected with a spiritual organization; assisting with a local meditation group; serving on the board of a local organization that is involved with a social justice issue that I support; helping build a new retreat center for a spiritual group that I'm connected with; providing nonviolence training for teens and adults.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, I also was news editor of a community nonprofit newspaper (unfortunately, it folded, but I had a blast working with the writers. We even broke one major story ahead of our local professional daily paper). I also spent a week in the Caribbean teaching journalism to high school students. I was invited to do this due to my professional and volunteer background, and my way was completely paid.</p>
<p>Things I've done over the past few years as a volunteer range from: soliciting, reporting and editing news stories to facilitating nonviolence workshops to running a national scholarship and internship program to picking up trash in a depressed neighborhood, and serving breakfast to homeless people.</p>
<p>"For most volunteering jobs, any idiot can do it, why take someone of high potential and caliber? You dont need a IQ above -1 to serve soup at a kitchen.)"</p>
<p>So what if one does a job that someone of lesser intelligence can do? That doesn't mean the job isn't enjoyable and fun.</p>
<p>Two weeks ago, I spent a Sat. morning feeding the homeless in a program at S's college. The person who organized it was one of the most impressive people I've ever met. He is 21, graduated magna cum laude from S's college last spring, and while in college created a nonprofit to feed the homeless. He runs that nonprofit while working a fulltime job that pays him $70,000. He also lives in a townhouse that he bought with money that he earned through investments (His dad gave him $2,000 to invest when he was in high school, and by making some very savvy investments, by junior year in college, he had enough money to buy a house.)</p>
<p>Anyway, while "any idiot" may be able to ladle soup, some of the most impressive people I have ever met devote part of their time to doing things like feeding the homeless. For instance, a friend of mine whose dad was a U.S. senator grew up spending her weekends volunteering with her family (and no, they didn't do this for political reasons). As an adult, she continued with her community service work, and by age 26 was heading a community service organization in a big city. Now in her early 30s, she is heading a national service organization. She is a really nice person -- thoughtful, not flashy, and is very committed to helping others.</p>
<p>I really feel sorry for people who think that volunteering is nauseating, a waste of time or something that only idiots do. While one gives a lot of oneself by volunteering, in my opinion, if you volunteer with organizations and causes that you care about, and if you utilize opportunities to use your talents and expand your skills, you'll find that by giving to others, you get a lot more for yourself. "A lot more" = skills, fulfillment, networks, impressive experience, etc.</p>