A Note on SelflessnessA Story by Angel AlliWritten about my first volunteer experience at a shelter.In our world people
ramble around mindlessly, looking for the new best thing. Looking for an
opportunity to advance their career. Looking for an escape from their life. And
all this time others are so far behind in this chase of wealth and opportunity
and forgotten in the dust of other’s success. I have been that person, more
often than I would like to admit.
Tonight, though, shocked me back into reality-
that more exists than my pretty well off middle-class life. Tonight, I had decided
to volunteer at the local Interfaith Winter Shelter, though, mainly out of
guilt for not having done so in the past. So while my friends went out to have
a good time, I caught a ride to the shelter to begin what would become a very
meaningful experience.
On the way there I
began to immediately regret signing up and wished I had just went with my
friends instead, but I had made a commitment and I tend to stick to my
promises. The night was really awkward. I won’t lie about that. I felt out of
place and like I was intruding into someone else’s life. I began to feel bad
about the life I had been born into, and that I deserved none of what I had
been given. Conversation was also awkward, because I did not know what to say.
So I did the easiest thing I could- I settled down for a couple rounds of the
Indiana favorite of Euchre with a few of the guests.
It was in the middle
of embarrassing myself with my poor Euchre skills that I began to enter into a
real conversation with the people around me, and it was then that I stopped
seeing them as the people I pass quickly by on the street and as someone’s
daughter, son, mother, father, sister, brother, friend, and neighbor. For the
first time, they became real people with real stories.
Though I still felt
awkward, I left feeling happy, because they were happy that I was there and I
felt a sense of selflessness that I had never experienced. I learned that to
sacrifice your time to help people when they are vulnerable, or in unfortunate
circumstances, is one of the best things you could possibly do, because we are
all each other’s neighbors in the end, and we all need to rely on each other. I
do not feel bad for the blessings in my life anymore, but I do see them as a
calling and opportunity to reach out and share out time and our love with
others. © 2014 Angel AlliFeatured Review
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2 Reviews Added on November 6, 2014 Last Updated on November 6, 2014 AuthorAngel AlliINAboutI'm a young Netflix-addicted college student who occasionally writes between majoring in Biology and saving the world. I'm going to do something someday. I don't know what. But I'ma gonna do it. more..Writing
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