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The Value of Volunteering

Summary: Volunteering is a healthy outlet.  Volunteering has been associated with improving life expectancy. Amazingly, volunteering has multiple rewards. Volunteering helps you meet new people all the time, it keeps you active, and most of all you are helping people. Volunteering is an altruistic act.  

| by Kristi Nielsen

The Value of Volunteering by Kristi Nielsen
The idea of being selfless, or altruistic acts, is for the most part contrary to the thinking we espouse, and perhaps even more so contrary to most business philosophies. Perhaps it is this that propels the argument of whether or not it even exists. We buy into survival of the fittest, me first thinking, when in essence the evolution towards lives of service is perhaps the highest level of personal development.

Daniel Dennett in his Darwin's Dangerous Idea claims Altruism "isn't really altruism at all, just enlightened self-interest of one form or another: you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" (Dennet, 1995, p.479). However, I am convinced there are many people, many of them seniors who give time and effort with no ulterior motive and the psychological and spiritual peace they have as a result is astounding.

Values are the result of boiling down our priorities after evaluating where and why they fit in our lives. Perhaps values are the “why” that motivates us to invest our lives the way we do. Values are relative. However, we may place greater importance on certain values in various stages of life. During retirement our values may shift to placing more emphasis on giving back to the community through volunteering.

A good way to get away from our problems is to do something for others. Volunteering is a healthy outlet. Helping people who are less fortunate than ourselves can help us appreciate what we have.

A gradual reduction of commitment to work or working part-time, volunteering, mentoring, and developing other activities that provide meaning and purpose are a large part of a happy retirement. Volunteering has been associated with improving life expectancy. Oman et al. (1999) found that volunteers aged 55 to 85 years who participated in two or more volunteer activities per week had a 63% lower mortality rate than non-volunteers.

Amazingly, volunteering has a double reward. When we help others who are less fortunate, they are most often very grateful and they view us as a hero of sorts. The feeling of validation that comes from being appreciated can be the very stepping stone needed to step up from depression to a healthier mental state.

Volunteering helps you meet new people all the time, it keeps you active, and most of all you are helping people. The reward is to be able to help people.

It is an attitude of gratitude that permeates through all of the elderly volunteers and people who maintain their vitality in to their late 80’s, 90’s and over 100. “The common factor among people who live to be very old, is appreciation for even the little things” says 87 year old Steve Chapelsky of Burnaby, BC, an active volunteer to spends his days helping shut-ins.

Volunteering is an altruistic act. Philosophers and psychologists have debated for years whether altruism really exists. After interviewing some of the most inspiring seniors I have met in my life, I just do not believe that altruistic behaviors, such as volunteering have no value. In fact, I would argue the value to the individual who gives exceeds makes them the winner.
The zest, vive and health of the people who are still volunteering well into their eighties confirms volunteers benefit from their involvement, their continued contribution to society and the end benefit is the strong sense of meaning they get from their work.

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