Thoughts, translated…
My wife retired two years earlier from her teaching position at the school because of health issues, she’d carried the mindset of giving back to the community, and started volunteering for various organizations, her life is busy, but she had, no complaints, instead, she’d felt, more than fulfilled.
But, I’d often seen her, rushing home from one of her volunteering opportunities, then, rushing out toward the next function; and sometimes, because the last volunteering ran late, she’d not had the time to eat her lunch. And, to me, helping people out, it’s, a good thing, but, if it’d affected the quality of your own life, then, it’d, defeated the purpose of why you’d started, volunteering in the first place.
I read a short essay, describing the basic principles of volunteering, that it shouldn’t affect other areas of one’s life like school, work, family, and health. There’s a story: a woman who lives with her husband wanted him to clean up the yards, but the husband used the excuse of how he needed to help clean up the temple nearby, as an excuse. This defeated the whole purpose of volunteering, if you can’t start at your own homes, and this model shouldn’t be followed at all.
In my wife’s daily busyness, she’d not let the household slide, but, I’d feared, that rushing to and fro would, affect her health, besides, rushing from one volunteer function to the next, she’s not giving herself the time to do anything else, after all, this is, the technology age that we are living in, and you should have the time to understand what’s out there, and improve the services you’re giving to the world too.
I think, that you need to plan out your personal lives first, including setting time aside for rest, for recharge; and, if you have more energy beyond that, then, feel free, to give back to the community all you want to. Being passionate about volunteering IS a good thing, but, pushing oneself too hard, causing your lives to go out of bounds, then, you’d needed to, adjust the time you’d put in, to volunteer. After I’d communicated to my wife about that, she’s slowly, seeing where I was coming from, and was, more able, to see the benefits of my way of thought, and she’s now, planning, her next moves.
So, this woman just needed someone to grab her, to slow her down, because, volunteering is a good thing, to help someone else out, to give back to the community, but, if you do it at the expenses of your families, your own health, then, it defeats the whole purpose of the concepts of volunteerism.
Life, the Obstacle Course 