As you grow older you will discover that you have two hands. One for helping yourself, the other for helping others. ~ Audrey Hepburn
As those lazy, crazy, hazy days of summer slowly draw to a close, I’ve begun thinking about Fall. It’s time to think about doing something useful with my time. This thinking resulted in my procuring an application form to volunteer in a “Leading to Reading Program” once a week. It’s held and sponsored by the Toronto Public Library. It’s a wonderful opportunity to help children having difficulty with reading improve their skills.
Volunteering is not new to me. I’ve volunteered at a food bank doing advocacy, taught English at a refugee centre, served lunch in a senior citizen’s building, worked with patients in a cancer detection unit in a hospital, and taught at a school for foreign students learning to speak English. Each of these experiences brought joy and happiness to me. They were a good use of my time and resources. “No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.” ― Charles Dickens
Although I’m a senior citizen and retired now, I still feel that there are gifts, skills, talents, and abilities that I can put out there in the world. Age is not a factor when it comes to lending a helping hand. My purpose in life is not just to eat, sleep, and have the most fun in life. It’s no longer to make money and have the most “toys. “There is not one big cosmic meaning for all; there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.” ―Anais Nin
So many people have helped me along the way of my life so far. I feel blessed and am eternally grateful. Whatever small contribution I can make to give back for all that I have received is a drop in the ocean. We don’t get anywhere in life without the support and help of a large number of other people. Despite how self-made we may think we are, this is not the whole truth. We are interdependent. At times, our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” Albert Schweitzer
As one ages, there are all kinds of questions that come up. They sound like this: Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? These are not easy questions and there are no pat answers. For myself, I have to conclude that I’m here to be of service to others. Even as I become more needful of support and help from others as I age, I can be of service to others in whatever small way I am able to. There is still something I can do and some need I can fill. “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” ~ Mother Teresa
As I prepare and send my application to offer a helping hand to some child or children who need help with reading, I feel myself coming closer to being able to answer those existential questions. Children in the community need help and I’m qualified, able, and willing to provide this service. This will result in shared time with another that has the opportunity to enrich both of our lives. This will also bring added meaning to my life as I will be making a contribution to the life of another. I’m looking forward to this enriching, rewarding, meaningful opportunity in the Fall. Nothing like being able to offer a helping hand – and heart. “I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance.” – Pablo Casals
Also, as far as we know, we only get one shot at this journey of life – we may as well make some of it count. That reminds me of this old saying:
I shall pass this way but once; any good that I can do or any kindness I can show to any human being; let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
ETIENNE DE GRELLET
POSTSCRIPT
For those reading this and on the senior end of the spectrum, here is an interesting, hopeful commentary for all of us.
“Age resistance is a futile kind of life resistance: We can’t live outside time, we begin to age the moment we’re born. But the emerging age-acceptance movement neither decries nor denies the aging process. It recognizes that one can remain vital and present, engaged and curious, indeed continue to grow, until one’s dying breath. Then we need only echo the wish of the British psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott: “May I be alive when I die.” (Anne Karpf is a British-based journalist and sociologist, and the author of “How to Age.”