...would be things I do that amount to giving away bits of my life in small increments. Reminiscent of my profound yet mundane discovery of how we all make decisions related to how we will spend. Time vs. $$$$. I was astounded when I came to the realization that the most valuable commodity we all have is Time. The thing everyone on the planet has in a limited supply, but we often seem to be willing to squander, be frivolous in how we spend, while we will make every effort to be so frugal with cash.
There is so much in print about how important it is to save, save, save and put aside a nest egg. To have sufficient resources to enjoy retirement when we are not longer in the work force, getting up and trudging off to employment every day. We are so saturated with information about the necessity of making more, to save more, to set aside more, to have more when we no longer have a weekly income: for the Golden Years. Then find that health has gone downhill, or we need to buy a new roof for the house, or family circumstances change.
But we often fail to consider that every day only has so many hours and minutes, and we should be making as many decisions about how we spend the Time as how we spend/save the $$$. Wisely or not. Pondering, and thinking about the ways in which we choose to deliberately devote our free time, to things that will have meaning, either for ourselves or others.
I recently read a publication from the workplace about a store manager who received a service award. At the annual meeting of stockholders, so the recognition was a pretty big deal: company wide. I do not know the details, but he is a man who has obviously devoted a huge chunk of time to community projects. In addition to the fifty hours a week the company expects him to put in as a store manager. Which means he has taken that same amount of time away from what he could have otherwise spent with his family, home-care projects or other endeavors. Pretty impressive. I don't know him well, or have any insight into his motivations. But chose to believe that a portion of the reason he does what he does in service work has to do with the way he was raised, the family he grew up in. Parents and grandparents who modeled the attitude of giving. People who instilled the belief that those who are blessed with much, have an obligation to do what they can to provide for the less fortunate.
My list: the one I started making a week ago, of things that I have participated in over the years. Different organizations that have benefitted from my willingness to devote my time to assist, provide support, labor hours in exchange for: nothing. Maybe some personal gratification. In the form of smiling faces of people who have received assistance. Or happy little girls who learned to do a craft they did not think they could accomplish. Or flowers planted to brighten the secret garden of a community center. I have been pondering my own personal service, and have been surprised to see, as I have added things to my list over several days, the number of places I have donated my skills, resources, talents. Basically - the ways in which I have chosen to live my life by giving my time to organizations I believe in, people and places I find worthy of my Time.
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