Why should I volunteer?

You will read this in: 1 minute
You will learn about: self-love, honesty, alternative views

You shouldn’t. The end.

Can you imagine if that was the whole article? Definitely very minimalistic and controversial. It reminds me of a story about a student taking a philosophy exam. The task was to write an essay proving that the chair standing in front of the pupils exists. The student, who received the top score, wrote only two words: ‘Which chair?’ Maybe this is where I am getting my inspiration from. Both are challenging, witty answers.

So, in this article, I might share an unpopular opinion for the question above. It is widely believed that people majorly volunteer because of their altruistic beginnings or pure heart, but I think that individuals (even when they volunteer), they do it for themselves. Not all, not all the time, there is always an outlier in every study. However, for most cases that would hold true.

Let me give you an example. I have participated in many volunteering endeavours. I planted trees, built walking paths in parks, cleaned beaches, etc. Even though, I am incredibly pro-environment, I think I did it all for myself rather than the Earth. For instance, I always wanted to plant a tree. When the thought was being formed in my mind, it, unfortunately, didn’t start from the perspective of what was good for the Earth. I put myself first, aka ‘It would be so cool to plant those trees and see them grow. This is what good people are doing, right?’ On another instance, I traveled to another country to volunteer to clean the beaches. I did it in order to get to know the locals more in depth and not necessarily to clean their sandy shores crystal clear - again, not very altruistic of me. Maybe sincere, but not Mother Theresa like.

The piece of wisdom I would like to share is that:

If you are volunteering, it is okay to do it for yourself.

Sometimes we need to rescue ourselves, too. Not only the beautiful Earth we live on. If we can help our environment or a fellow human on the way, that is great. Don’t feel guilty, if the wellbeing of yourself was your primary motivator. If you don’t feel like doing something,

You shouldn’t. Just like that :)