| Looking around me, I can’t help but see other people who have made it a priority to find a way to give back. Whether it’s my good friend who dedicates time every year to organizing events to raise money for our local hospital, a caring colleague who organizes a Relay for Life team year after year to raise money to fund cancer research, a fellow chorister who volunteers at her grandchildrens’ school to help with the reading program, a former workmate who sits on a volunteer board to promote mental health, or my Dad, who drags watering can after watering can around to the flowers in his small town to beautify the street scale for residents and cottages alike, giving back is all around me. I have another old friend who is working on making the world a better place on a far grander scale. He has founded an organization called the Global Civics Academy, and has written a book on the same subject, dedicated to — in the simplest of terms — looking at how interconnected and interdependent we are as global citizens are, how we need to understand that our actions on one side of the earth affect people on the other, and act accordingly. Now, I have not been completely an island unto myself. Until this year, I sang in my church choir, giving back, I hope, to a community of people who helped me through a difficult time. Before I went back to work full time 8 years ago, I was active in my kids’ schools. Now, I volunteer time to organize music for my daughter’s choir, and I sit on the board of an industry association. Lately, though, it doesn’t feel like enough. Yet I can’t figure out how I’d fit something new into what feels like a jam packed life. How do you make time for meaningful activities? |
