I’d like to be a more active volunteer. Volunteer – I don’t particularly like that word – let’s just say “I’d like to be more active in the community.”
What do I mean by more active? What I mean is that I don’t think I want to have my day job be my only productive and social activity. In other words, I don’t want to necessarily stop working when I come home. I want my play time to be at least partially defined by activities which contribute to the creation of something – rather than consumption of something else.
What do I mean by community? I have 3 categories in mind:
- Local community
- Local means Denver – or Colorado community. I would love to meet people who want to make this a better place to live. So far, I’ve had great experiences at the African Community Center, which is very close to my apartment.
- World community
- I hope to be useful in a more global context over the internet. Though I haven’t yet found anything definitive, I will try Nabuur.com and see where that takes me.
- Unknown community
- This category is a chance for me to learn something new. It is “unknown” because before volunteering I will know very little about the community – and the act of getting involved in it will be that much more revealing and beneficial to me.
- So, the first subject of exploration will be Politics. After all, United States is a democracy, and we should be actively participating in shaping our politics. And, given that I am a registered Republican (though a very moderate one) I am thinking of getting to know the Colorado GOP.
The three categories will also define my volunteering efforts: I will split the total time I want to volunteer into 3, each covering one of the categories:
I only hope that I will have the time and the energy to do all these things.
