Picking up from last time –
I’ll admit I’ve been taking on sort of a lot lately with various marathon training, working a lot, plus all the volunteer activities and yada yada yada. There’s always an excuse. It’s too easy to say “I’m busy.” There are people doing a million more things than I am.
So, I’m handling it all and not trying to complain here. But still, sometimes I’m tired. I might end up working late and going to bed late, and sometimes I just want to sleep in. (That maybe sounds a little weak, but it happens.) And I think sometimes my sort of tiredness has been coming through.
When I go to volunteer activities with an open heart, excited to be there, it’s a different feeling than “Oh my goodness, as soon as this is over I need to get to the next one (or to work, or to sleep, or the gym, or wherever else in the world I might need to go).”
As I’ve said before, attitude is a humongous part of life. My joyous attitude slipped a bit when there were multiple times in a pretty short time span that I got sent home from an event early because there was nothing to do…
But technically, if I’m as cool and enlightened as Cory Booker seems, then nothing could change my attitude. Conceivably, your attitude is supposed to be something you decide. Everything else that happens around you is just stuff that happens. It doesn’t affect anything.
However, I’m not that enlightened. I do get cranky sometimes because of things happening around me.
And I think sometimes it’s been a little stressful trying to make sure I hit all my numbers of volunteer activities. I’m trying to pile on in the beginning, because I do not want to be volunteering during the holidays. And those false starts where I go and there’s nothing to do, so I go home – they’re slowing me down!
I think the goal of 52 in a year is a good one because it keeps me accountable, and it’s measurable. It shouldn’t be all that wildly difficult (aka totally doable), yet it’s still difficult enough to feel like there’s a challenge aspect to it.
But sometimes it seems like I might be getting slightly too worried about the numbers, and losing my focus on the actual important parts – helping others, growing, learning, enjoying the experiences as they come – all that stuff.
I have one more post about being mid-way through this project, where I’ll talk about what I’ve learned if I ever were a volunteer coordinator – tomorrow.