Maybe your high school requires that you volunteer a certain number of hours before allowing you to graduate. Maybe you’re looking for some experience to write on your resume. Maybe your parents are forcing you to freely give away your time when you can use it to do other things (such as play video games).

But have you thought about why some people volunteer “voluntarily”?

Why do we volunteer, anyway? What’s the point?

It Gives Back to the Community

Think about where we would be without diligent volunteers. The world would have no Wikipedia, making that 2000-word Biology essay that much harder. There would be no annual Red-Cross blood drive, making saving people who need blood impossible. There’d be no parent associations for all sorts of school activities, driving many of those to a halt. Volunteering make a community a better place, for all. In the words of the bard:

How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
~ William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice

You Learn Valuable Skills

Think volunteering is nothing more than you giving? Think again. You are probably receiving more than you give. If you volunteer at your public library, then every interaction with a library patron is another piece of experience of on-the-spot human-to-human interaction. You learn how to deal with strangers. If you volunteer at the nursing home, then every resident you help gives you more insight into their medical condition and the human body. Your interactions with them can teach you life lessons, as they are most likely old and experienced. If you volunteer at the local botanical gardens, you learn the proper way to prepare soil for planting, to weed out undesirable grasses, to take care of plants, to spot dangerous plants such as poison ivy, and much more. If you volunteer physical labor, then you experience what it’s like (and possibly get a work out at the same time!) The more experiences you have in life, the more prepared you are for what’s to come. Do you still think volunteering is about giving?

You Gain a Sense of Self-Worth

Every time you volunteer, you should feel some positive reinforcement. You should feel good about what you’ve done. After all, you’ve probably helped countless people with nothing more than your personal effort and time. What’s not great about that?