V Is For Volunteer #Decoding Midlife

Volunteer(noun), – A person who freely offers to take part in an enterprise or undertake a task.

This month-long challenge and writing about midlife have been a wonderful learning experience for me. Writing about my aspirations from midlife has made me weave beautiful dreams for myself. I have this new found urge within myself to want to make my midlife years fruitful.  When I started writing on midlife, I didn’t know that I would want to write about volunteering. When I was planning my posts, I thought maybe I would write on being versatile or vivacious or write on living my life with vigour.

My childhood dream

Since childhood, my great grand -father’s life and work have inspired me a lot. Though I didn’t do much in my life until now to follow his footsteps. My great-grandfather gave up everything and worked relentlessly for the upliftment of the tribals. He is a Padma Shri recipient and the pride of our family.

I am the only privileged great-grandchild who was fortunate enough to have spent childhood years with him. I take immense pride in that and also have his Padma Shri as my most treasured possession as well as inheritance. My Treasure That I Value The Most

A confession

I mention about him here as I feel that it is the right time where I can confess that I didn’t try enough to pursue my childhood dream of being a bit like him. Maybe I looked for comfort and did not put in the efforts.

Future Plans

Thus, I plan to volunteer during my midlife. I should get back to teaching again. Being a teacher and giving it up as a profession to be with my daughter during her formative years was a very important decision for me. At that point, I thought that it was the right decision as we had moved to a new city and she needed my time. Later I never went back to school. Now she is grown up and quite independent. Also, I miss my teaching days. It was like reliving my childhood along with my students. When I miss my students too much I remove the cards they made for me and the school photographs. It makes me wants to go back to teaching. Those are very precious memories of my life.

To commence my volunteering journey, I could help my house-help’s granddaughter to learn.  She accompanies her grandmom and many times I want to tell her that she should spend her time in learning than doing household work. But she insists on helping her grandmom. Maybe I should start with her. It will be a small step but a significant one for me nonetheless.

I am sure I will never experience the feeling of emptiness that midlife crises would bring along with it if I invest my time to make someone’s life a bit easier if not better. It would give me a sense of contentment and accomplishment which nothing else could ever provide. I just hope I can bring some joy to someone’s life soon.

“You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.”

• Winston Churchill