Vounteer vs. Samaritan?

I read an article on CNN.com this week about people who met while volunteering and fell in love. http://http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/personal/03/24/find.love.while.volunteering/index.htmlI guess volunteering might be better than signing up for match.com :)

It made me think about the difference between what I am advocating with Team Samaritan and the great things that volunteers do. Basically, it's the difference between action and reaction.

I'm urging people to react more positively to situations that which might crop up in their path in the course of theirday. I'm urging people to not walk away when they see someone who needs help. I'm urging people to not assume that someone else will help but to take responsibility for giving that help.

Volunteers, on the other hand, are taking action and not being solely reactive. On their own intiative, they are searching out opportunities to do some good in this world. I greatly admire the work that volunteers do but, typically, I do not volunteer. Why? Probably because I'm a little lazy.

More specifically, I don't like having too many time commitments (sidenote: It is not normal that EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. I type "commitment" I have to doublecheck whether it is one or two t's in the middle.) I'm the kind of person who needs time alone to rest and recharge. I need time to read or watch TV or just be. Before I got laid off, I didn't have a lot of free time between work, family obligations, etc. and so volunteering, while something I would like to do, just wasn't on my radar as something realistic for me. Of course, everyone has a million reasons to excuse their not doing something that they believe has value and that they know they should be doing.

Now, however, I have a great opportunity to do some volunteering. My schedule is wide open. I've been laid off (unofficially) for almost two months and my official last day is Tuesday. These last two months have flown by and, other than some fantastic quality time with my two toddler nephews, I don't have too much to show for it. My life has consisted mainly of sending out resumes (thus far completely unsuccessfully), yoga, running, walking my dog, cleaning my house, and hanging out with my mom and my nephews. It's been relaxing and wonderful but I need something more purposeful, something that will make me feel that I am accomplishing something in my life.

So enters my first volunteering effort since college. Beginning next week, I am going to be volunteering for a legal services agency that I interned with during law school. Ironically, I will be counseling people on obtaining unemployment benefits while on Wednesday I will be applying for them myself.

I am really excited for this opportunity because it was my internship at this agency that first got me interested in employment law. It was the first time that I really paid attention to the relationship that people have with their jobs and how much importance many people place on it above and beyond simply receiving a paycheck. Although when I began to practice law, I mainly represented employers against employees so I'm not sure what that really says about me.

Right now, however, I am definitely trying to be a better person. I'll let you know how it goes.