The other day my volunteer shift to deliver food gave me a double challenge. The amount of food that would have been thrown away required two trips and it was raining and cold. Then last night, the volunteer organizer said there was a big load of milk close to the expiration date and asked if anyone could do an extra shift. No one else could do it and I could, so this morning I did another double load. Liquids are the most dense, so the load was particularly heavy.

(This picture is from another shift. I don’t take pictures every time I deliver so reuse pictures from old posts stored in WordPress.)

Saturday’s cold and rain would have made me feel miserable if I were just going for a walk or I had planned to indulge in a picnic. I didn’t enjoy it, but I didn’t feel miserable. On the contrary, I felt a greater sense of service and duty. It helped that a friend joined me, but I sensed that she felt reward too. After all, her name wasn’t on the volunteer shift. She could have left any time.

I’m seeing volunteering as helping create mental and emotional resilience, self-awareness, and patience, along with other benefits. Yes, it helps others and I’m not discounting that aspect, but I’m tabling that part. To those who say that with a PhD and an MBA I could find or create ways to help people more by doing something higher level than the low-level work of pulling food in a cart.

While I am also doing such things, my point is that the work returns value something like sitting on a meditation cushion just focusing on my breath. Volunteering brings the mind to a different place than anything else. It’s sort of like exercise, play, or a performance art, but different because of the element of service.

This winter I delivered many times amid snowdrifts and yucky city slush following blizzards that dropped over a foot of snow. Yes, it’s hard and unpleasant, but it’s rewarding. I mention those times because they train me for these times. Those times made this morning’s double load felt like a breeze. I was wearing shorts and took off my hat because it was warm enough.

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