BITS AND PIECES-LIFE REDIRECTION AND PURPOSE REDEFINITION THROUGH VOLUNTEERING
Imagine a world where you wake up one morning and everything rightly falls into place for you, sort of a Utopia. Yes, a life where you live out your life to the fullest and with great purpose. One knows what you have to do and the choices to make, what shall ensue them and basically how your life will turn out in the next five, ten and twenty years. I bet none of us would shun it. But at best, for most of us, that kind of life is simply a long fetched imagination.
The reality of life is that many times we trek life as a journey of uncertainties. We have divergent opinions, conflicting interests, dissuading experiences and sometimes we simply don’t know for sure what we want or need or what our lives shall be like or what single most important passion we should pursue. Our emotions are torn between our fascinations, dreams and general societal expectations. The pain of those conflicting emotions can even affect how we live our lives.
It pays a great deal to engage in things that can help streamline your goals, dreams, ambitions and purpose. Volunteering is one of them.
Volunteering is one of the ways to come down from our horses and meet the basic needs of others regardless of the little or much we have, the status we possess or the background we come from. Well sometimes it can cost us money, but other times its skills we already have plus a great deal of love, compassion, kindness and goodness, which we can all afford to spend.
The beauty about volunteering is that as you do so, you open yourself up to new experiences, perspectives, challenges and possibilities as you interact with other people and new ecosystems. These can be life-changing and could redirect your life and purpose. As you reflect on your volunteering experience, chances are that as you look back, you’ll begin to connect the dots and as the bigger picture takes form, you’ll see the bits and pieces come together, redirecting your life to a more meaningful, memorable and satisfactory journey.
I know of a story of Anna. She was a medical student from the Netherlands that came to volunteer in Uganda. She was placed in a certain hospital where she got exposed to experiences that would, later on, redefine her life. Every day, for about six weeks, she saw patients, suffering from all manner of ailments, flocking the hospital to get medication. The conditions are services were strange to her European experience, and consequently couldn’t pass without a pinch on her soul.
The pain of seeing poverty-stricken patients sent back home for failing to meet the medical bills, patients who failed to meet the doctor because the patients were much more than the doctors could afford to attend to in any given day, kids fighting for their lives at the hands of malaria, kwashiorkor malnutrition etc, tough working conditions for health officers, inadequate staffing and medical facilitation and so on. All these culminated into contemplative nights that often left her in tears, and challenged to do something. Being only a student, there didn’t seem much to do. But nay, her soul had been stirred and a light turned on inside. Her mind was made up to do something. Anna and a group of her fellow interns mobilized themselves and ran online fundraising back home which managed to raise about $1500. This they gave to the hospital with so much pride and all the joy in their hearts.
On the evening of her volunteering experience. She reflected on how the medical systems in Africa were miles behind her taken for granted medical services in Europe. She leapt with gratitude, realizing that it’d been a privilege to have such, but not everyone has such an opportunity. On her way back, she was rejuvenated to take her studies and career more seriously, finish the course and help as many people as possible, and hopefully be back to Africa for the same one day.
So life has the picture in greyscale and in bits and pieces, and through a volunteering experience, you can have reflective experiences that can redirect you to a profound journey that’s so dear to your heart. Yes, even the kind that you’ve always wanted to do in your heart of hearts but didn’t know how to connect the bits and pieces.
Do you want to have such an experience? Start your volunteering journey today! This could be the entry ticket to that imaginary Utopia of purpose and a meaningful life that you’ve always wished for.
This article was written by Patrick Mugera, a volunteer Content Writer at VoluCulture.
