It’s Also Service For Self
For me, the Rotary motto of “Service Above Self” has a corollary: Service for Self. I don’t mean that I volunteer to help my career, make professional connections, or for other economic benefits, though those are common and valid reasons to volunteer.
I volunteer because serving others makes me feel good.
I feel connected to the world and to the hope I am making an impact, however small or large. I call our Spring Egg Hunt the “best two minutes in Orinda every year” because – for me – it is. The happiness I feel watching those kids enjoy themselves far exceeds any excitement I felt when I was on their side of an egg hunt – and the feeling lasts longer than the candy, too. I feed off that high for at least a full week every year.
Volunteering improves my mental health, and it turns out I am not alone. Last month, I referenced a 2023 study of nearly 52,000 children and adolescents finding that volunteering improved mental health, reduced anxiety and increased the chances of flourishing in the study group.
The science is even more robust for adults.
A 2023 umbrella study of volunteering (https://bit.ly/4cbDUmP) reported that most recent studies found that volunteering improved general well-being and quality of life. Those effects came primarily from the psychological impacts of volunteering – in other words, better mental health. Cited studies also found volunteering had a positive effect on reducing depression and anxiety, while increasing life satisfaction.
The reviewed studies also showed volunteering had a positive effect on physical health, including self-reported health, functional independence and reduced functional disability. The authors found that “the evidence for decrease in mortality was the most substantial [evidence]” and remained significant even when adjusting for a variety of other factors such as socio-economic status, religious observance and other social support.
In other words: VOLUNTEERING IS GOOD FOR YOU (and you just might live longer)!
I call volunteering my “drug of choice.”
In the 1988 movie “Scrooged,” Bill Murray – he plays Scrooge – encapsulates that idea in his final soliloquy after discovering the joy of doing things for others. I’ve thought about his wonderful ravings often this year in thinking about service above self: “You’ve just got to want that feeling. And if you like it and you want it, you’ll get greedy for it. You’ll want it every day of your life… It’s great. It’s a good feeling. It’s really better than I’ve felt in a long time.”
As our Rotary Club’s 75th anniversary year comes to an end, I hope that somewhere in this year’s columns you found an interesting nugget to inspire your own service journey, or to remind yourself why you already are a part of Orinda’s enormous volunteer army.
We meet every Wednesday from 12:15 – 1:30 p.m. at the Orinda Community Center, and invite you to join us for lunch, a great speaker, a ton of fun and most of all, service before self.
