Reflection on Volunteer Work

Why do we volunteer? To most people, a volunteer is “someone who contributes time to helping others with no expectation of pay or other material benefit to herself.” However, this does not mean that volunteer work is of no consequence for the volunteer. Volunteer work is intended to promote good or improve human quality of life, but people also volunteer for a variety of other reasons that could be considered self-serving. As I grew up, my perceptions of volunteer work changed. I transitioned from being forced to volunteer by my parents to wanting to volunteer regularly.
When I was in fifth grade, my temple was offering classes to help educate people about the implications of Social Security and Medicare benefits. My mother signed me up to help the teacher with tedious paper work. I honestly hated volunteering every week, but I thought about how I was helping the people of my religious community. When I was Hindu, I was taught that volunteering was like the Law of Conservation of Energy; all the energy I spent in volunteering would be transferred to the people I was helping. I tried to apply this principle to all the work I did.
In 2006, I began to question my faith and contemplate the implications of what I was about to do. Finally, I decided to tell my parents about my decision to not be Hindu and decided I wanted to volunteer at a hospital and nursing home to help people that would be more greatly influenced by my presence. My grandmother lives in the nursing home where I volunteer, so I get to spend quality time with her and helping the elderly have a good time. That feeling I get when an old lady tells me I remind her of her grandson is just incomparable to anything else.
      In conclusion, I found that there where two major areas in my life those were greatly influenced, and positively affected by being a part of Service.   The first area relates to commitment.   When I first signed up for volunteering, I was not very thrilled about doing so much work....