On Volunteering

In my last blog, I touched on volunteering, something that has many positive results. A 2013 study found that people over 50 who volunteer at least 200 hours a year have greater psychological well-being, are more physically active and not as likely to develop hypertension as people who do not volunteer. And, volunteering certainly puts one’s own problems into perspective.

          If you are considering volunteering but don’t know where to start, here are a few pointers. It would be difficult to imagine how some organizations or groups could function without volunteers. And mature people are ideally suited to enhance their community’s quality of life through volunteering by putting a lifetime of skills and experience to good use.

          Often volunteers get involved with a specific group or organization because they have lost a loved one to a devastating illness. However, if you are uncertain on how you could volunteer in your community, begin by assessing your interests and experience. Most of us have accumulated so many skills that it might be difficult in fact to focus on one in particular, so sit down and make a list.

          If you “only” raised a family, you have organizational, teaching, money management and people skills that a wide range of organizations could use. If you love working with your hands, you could offer your services to do repairs and maintenance at shelters or food banks. If you drive a car, you can deliver Meals on Wheels to homebound people. If you are a grandparent, look into getting involved in your community’s intergenerational programs to guide a young child who doesn’t have grandparents. If you can read, an elderly person with poor eyesight would welcome being read to. If you have a telephone, you can become a lifeline for a lonely, forgotten elderly person by keeping in touch on a daily basis. The list is almost endless.

          If you love to clown around, why not don a clown suit and visit a local hospital so ill children can laugh, or visit a veterans facility to share stories and play games. If you write well, consider giving your time to writing an organization’s newsletter or other materials. Youth groups of all sorts could use the expertise of teachers.

GETTING STARTED

Once you have determined how you would like to volunteer, here are some pointers:

-- If you have a specific organization in mind, contact the chapter in your community and speak with the manager of volunteers. Most charities have websites which provide volunteering information and opportunities.

-- Contact your local volunteer bureau to collect information about the volunteer needs of organizations and to identify the agencies that could benefit from your support.

-- Check the local media. Community newspapers regularly list volunteer needs in the area.

-- Talk to friends and relatives who already volunteer as they can provide information.

THE NEXT STEP

Volunteering today involves more than simply coming forward and offering your time and skills. Organizations devote time to matching volunteers to positions to ensure a positive experience for everyone concerned.

          As a prospective volunteer, you can expect a process which will include:

An application   A formal application helps the organization determine how best to use your talents. 
An interview   This process is an opportunity for you the perspective volunteer to learn more about volunteer positions and their responsibilities.

A background check   To avoid problems down the road, organizations do background checks on perspective volunteers and do contact references.

Training   Organizations usually provide orientation and training to their volunteers to ensure they clearly understand their responsibilities as a volunteer.

          Volunteering is an act of generosity that should be fun. Once an organization and you have agreed on a specific activity, remember that if it isn’t what you expected you can ask to do something else. Happy volunteers contribute their time for years, something charitable organizations understand only too well. Simply explain the problem frankly and openly.

AND...

          The sense of fulfillment makes it all worthwhile. There is a feeling of satisfaction and pride at contributing to ease the burden of others, and you will be positively energized.

         

The Age of Loneliness

The world has known different ages, from the stone age to the iron age to the space age to the digital age and to today’s age of social networking. It seems that, in turn, the age of social networking has brought us to the age of social isolation which according to experts is killing us because it is as potent a cause of early death as heavy smoking and obesity

            While we can communicate with the world on our various screens, isolation which results in loneliness is rising sharply. Back in 1998 a survey found that increased Internet usage was coinciding with increased loneliness. Today, data points to the fact that loneliness is epidemic despite digital connections. The reason stems from the fact that digital connections do not create bonds and thus there is no emotional relationship. The more digitally connected we are, the lonelier we become.

            A 2010 AARP survey found that 35% of adults over 45 were chronically lonely compared to 20% a decade earlier. And that percentage is no doubt ever increasing especially among retired people who live alone and whose families are scattered.

            New technologies are luring us to superficial connections. As an example, in the not-too-distant past people had an interaction with the newspaper vendor every day. Today we read the news online by ourselves. We used to browse bookstores to find reading material and get advice and comments through interaction with the knowledgeable staff. Today, our books are on line and read on a screened device without our talking to anyone. We used to interact with sales clerk in stores, now we shop online without going outside. Even grocery shopping has changed. As we scan groceries by ourselves, robots read the codes, add the total and even give us change. All this without our having to say hello or exchange a few words with a clerk.

            And then there is social networking like Facebook which results in broader but shallower connections. It has become normal to broadcast what we are doing ever so often, but we are only screen sharing, not sharing with real friends. In fact it interferes with real friendships and distances us from each other.

            Because no one can cope alone, television becomes a consolation for many older people which leads to serious chronic conditions. Other data shows that there is a decrease of personal confidants people can turn to for discussing problems or ideas. Back in 2004, we saw that 25% of people had nobody to talk to. What is it today with the digital age getting ever wider?

            As we get older, it is important to reach out, find new interests and make new friends. That means we should expand our activities with things such as classes and discussion groups in order to meet new people and share feelings. Volunteering is a marvellous way to expand one’s social network while feeling good about reaching out to those who need it.

Being at Peace

Sharing some inspirational thoughts I have come across recently!

If you are depressed

You are living in the past

If you are anxious

You are living in the future

If you are at peace

You are living in the present

   Lao Tzu

What we think we become.   Buddha

Your mind is a garden. Your thoughts are seeds. You can grow flowers or you grow weeds.

Inner peace begins the moment we choose not to allow another person or event to control our emotions.  

Worry takes away today’s peace for a problem that may never happen.   

Very little is needed to make a happy life.

And: I have chosen to be happy because it’s good for my health.  Voltaire

The Funny Side

Although I certainly do not feel like it at all times, I do make an effort to look at the funny side of life and to hang around with like-minded people. It brightens life.

            Nobody wants to be around people who are always complaining about something or the other, no matter their age—or perhaps especially when they’re on the downhill side of 50. The longer we live, the more problems we face, but that doesn’t mean that everything is bad. There’s always a bit of sunshine even in a cloudy cycle.

           A fun-loving woman I know tells her husband she keeps a spare man in the trunk of her car in case he goes flat.        

            Some people may see the cliché Laughter is the Best Medicine as being overused, but that does not make it less true. Medical research shows that laughter has an immediate positive effect on the main organs of the human body. It certainly relieves stress.

In my experience those who have mastered the art of laughing at life and its foibles have an easier time than people who focus all their energy on the less-than-perfect moments we all experience. One of the reasons is certainly that laughter relaxes the whole being. As Audrey Hepburn famously said: Laughing cures a multitude of ills.

            There’s nothing funny about getting older, a colleague told me a while back. My answer was that she was right but also very wrong. Sure, many of us could do without the pain of arthritis, for example, but that doesn’t mean that it should be the center of our lives. We live in an epoch which offers a plethora of remedies for a variety of health problems, something that was not available to our ancestors. It frees us to make the most of life and make it as pleasant as possible.

Accepting what is and making the best of it is not always easy. Some people constantly stand on their tippy toes to see over the fence in the neighbor’s yard to prove that the grass there is indeed greener, that other people can laugh while they can’t. I have always found it interesting that we are all inclined to compare ourselves to others, in one way or another. The neighbor is prettier, richer, happier, and so on, we think. What we tend to forget is that we are all different, and that appearances can be quite deceiving.

I believe that to be happy, we have to dwell on the good things in our lives at the present moment, and laugh at the rest. We may have arthritic knees, but it does not prevent us from enjoying our grandchildren. And we can all use humor to diffuse the irritations of life. People don’t stop laughing because they grow old, they grow old because they stop laughing. And besides, laughter is contagious.    

Share a joke with your spouse, your neighbor or your friend and the day is bound to be brighter.

Seenagers

Each generation gets a moniker. The latest it seems is the “seenager” generation. Seenagers can mean seniors who act like teenagers, but more and more it is being used for the young seniors. I’m not quite sure what age range qualifies as young when referring to seniors, but I’ve been told that it means seniors who feel they still haven’t crossed over to the senior group because of their approach to life. While being of retirement age, they don’t consider themselves seniors. Many are still working, while others make the most of their abilities, experience and time by reaching out to others in the community through volunteering or teaching. Some use their time to travel to far off countries, others go back to school to get a degree or to simply learn something new. The common denominator is that they keep active and involved.  

            A lady I know told me that for her it’s a great time of life. Unlike when she was a teenager, now she doesn’t need an ID to buy beer, she has no acne and isn’t worried about getting pregnant. And she added that she can take advantage of so many discounts available to her age group. Her involvement in the community is rather unique. From time to time she approaches the young people working the ticket booth in the movie theatre near her home and convinces them to ask a few “seenagers” seeking the senior discount that they need to provide ID. A lot of smiles follow as the movie goers proudly prove their age.

            The lady told me that it makes her so happy to see that those “seenagers” are invariably full of joy as they proceed inside the theatre. She is convinced that the good feeling lasts for some time. I’m tempted to agree. After all, who would not want to appear younger than their age? I certainly would. Unfortunately, no one has asked for my ID in a while!

           

The Ol’ Days

Women of my mother’s generation did not enjoy the household luxuries we take for granted today: the clothes dryer, the dishwasher, and so on. Homemakers made do with what they had, expending a lot of energy in their daily tasks. Luckily, little by little things improved.

            Few people would want to go back to those labor-intensive ol’ days, yet most of us mourn some aspect of the past which we somehow feel would make our lives better today. Pangs of nostalgia seem to be most common when the cost of things is on the carpet. Someone will inevitably say: I remember paying less than 50 cents for a gallon of gas.

            Nostalgia has a way of being selective, though. We tend to forget what the minimum wage was in the ol’ days. We tend to glorify only the memories which seem to prove the argument of the moment. For example, we may complain about today’s ethics by comparing them to a time when concern for others was, we feel, the norm rather than the exception. However, we tend to forget that some of the attitudes of the past were grossly narrow-minded.

            In the ol’ days, society through its better-than-thou authority figures, often sat in judgement over those who were different, making their lives miserable if not a living hell. In the ol’ days, prices might have been cheaper, but when it comes to certain attitudes, we could very well call them the dark days. It is a time not everyone would wish to relive.

           Of course, it could be argued that faced with today’s terrorism threats the ol’ days look pretty good in comparison. That is if we don’t take into account all the atrocities of past wars.

           Would it not be great if we could experience a world where man’s inhumanity to man would simply vanish?

Living Today

The evolution of technology we are experiencing has been unmatched in the history of mankind. And change continues to snowball ever so rapidly.

         In the 60s, everyone had a theory of what the home of the future would be like. It was predicted that by the new century, robots would be washing floors and preparing meals. It didn’t happen quite that way. The tiles on the kitchen floor may be easier to clean today than the floor coverings in our grandmothers’ days, but the robots are nowhere in sight. The shelves in our grocery stores may be chock-full of products not available to our parents, but we still have to shop and prepare meals.

            In fact, when we look at it closely, despite the numerous improvements that have come our way over the years, home life is still very much the same. Meals may be faster to prepare with the microwave oven and we may have an array of entertainment choices, but we basically live in the same type of home environment our grandparents experienced.

            It seems to me that some of the more important innovations that have come along are serving us mostly unseen. We spend less time waiting in line at the grocery store check-out counter because bar coded prices are scanned quickly. We can now access our bank accounts any time of the day or night, and we can’t imagine that we actually lived in an era, just a few years ago in fact, when we had to make sure we got to our bank branch before it closed.

           I wonder if Alexander Graham Bell had any idea of the impact his newfangled contraption would have on the world. Did he ever imagine today’s smart phones?

            We used to write letters by hand, while today we can send an e-mail that will be read instantly halfway around the world. Yet much of the information technology at our disposal is basically just coming into its own, and most of us somehow managed to have very productive lives without it.

            We will be spending our retirement years enjoying the benefits of the very latest advances, but what amazes me is that, for the most part, we still worry about the same sort of things our parents and grandparents worried about. Like them we worry about our children and our grandchildren.

            In the end, like our parents, we can only hope and pray that the future with all the innovations it has yet to offer the world will be generous when it comes to happiness. In a world in constant and often mind-boggling evolution, it is after all the only measure that really matters for those we love.