Weekly flash:

Dear angels,

Another saturday in our lives, elderly’s lives have just gone by.

Instead of the normal weekly flash, thought I would do something different by sharing more about the volunteer in me.

As a volunteer, I have gone through various phases of emotions and thoughts throughout the years. I was an enthusiatic young volunteer to start off with, full of purpose in my outlook, to return to society what has been bestowed upon me, an education which provided the means and resilience to start off an career which I have always wanted to try out. I then reluctantly became a leader, but it was heartening to play a part in a volunteer group which went on from strength to strength, sustaining the efforts to provide love and happy moments for the elderly.

A know we can only provide moments of happiness for the closing chapters of the lives of the elderly but I guess it does mean a lot more to them than to us, and that’s something which I will like to take the chance to share here.

There were times when it got a bit tiring for me, I wanted out, work was demanding and of cos is more demanding now and I wanted to do a good job, I felt overstretched and my heart was crying out to cut down on my commitments, and one thing that came to mind was to slowly pull myself out of volunteering totally.

I did not….not that I think that i am indispensible as a volunteer haha that’s thinking too highly of myself but i could not bear to make myself leave my family of friends and elderly behind, and to play mahjong. I am proud to be able to serve regularly but it’s really not a matter of personal record but to leave an impact does make life more meaningful and satisfying an experience…that’s how I view my job too

Anyway through it all, I have learnt that leadership in volunteering is very important as it means that there can be focused energies in providing effective and widespread services for a bigger group of beneficiaries. And more importantly, every single one of us has a role to play in the larger picture. It is like a cockroach (yucky analogy) where without a leg, it still can crawl but take away more legs and it cannot move eventually. A cockroach can survive without its head but only for a while cos eventually it will die off with its body intact.

I dislike the cockroach but you have got to admire its resilience. it has been around millions of years but humans…a few thousand years? if mankind is to exist longer, we have better learnt to treasure our legs and keep our heads on ;)

Is there any messages that i am trying to bring across….definitely…but to each a different interpretation cos each of us is a different individual, our personal beliefs and values dictate how we interpret each sentence and each action. each of you is special and can be spectacular in your own right.

Keep your volunteering spirit burning, there are times to conserve fuel and there are times when we feel like burning brightly to light up the darkness. Put the flames together and the world will be a pretty bright one :)

Adios

the “full of nonsense” electronic emailer forced to blog