Should you volunteer if you feel lonely?
If you can clamour past stigma and stereotypes and tell someone you’re lonely, one of the first (no, wait, the very first) thing you’ll hear is that you should volunteer!! The basic idea is this: helping others will take your mind off your own (insignificant) worries, and you might just meet the love of your life at the food bank.
The idea that we should respond to loneliness through volunteering is too simple. Imagine saying this to a depressed person: “Go volunteer!!” It’s banal. It fails to capture how complex loneliness can be.
Many of the lonely people I spoke to had tried volunteering, and they said that that it made them feel worse. That is, not only did they feel alone, but they were standing at a food bank, or an animal shelter, or at a desk reading books for the blind, and they were still alone. Worse, all of the other volunteers might have known each other for years, so the lonely person was left feeling weird and excluded.
This doesn’t mean you should never volunteer as a means of responding to loneliness. But I think volunteering pays off the most if you would have done it despite your loneliness. I volunteer with an animal rescue organization because I care about animals—not because I’m trying to feel less lonely.
This entry was posted on Saturday, January 23rd, 2010 at 11:05 am and is filed under the category Volunteering.
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4 Responses to “Should you volunteer if you feel lonely?”
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I am a lawyer. I volunteered at the Court in my area so far just one time. The experience was nothing like Emily described it. I felt soothed/comforted by the experience. Here, people came in with really serious prbolems and I was able to help. Plus, I was around like minded people. I do not mean to trivialize the problem of loneliness at all. But it is very difficult to feel lonely when you are with someone who is in danger of losing a house or not having money for food. It helps give perspective.
It’s hard to be lonely, and the strange thing is, we try to solve loneliness with other people, and often it’s a bit like drinking seawater to quench our thirst — ostensibly it’s water, but it’s not the right kind and it could make our condition worse. I won’t even attempt to say what helps me will help anyone else, but I have found, for me, it’s important to get out of my head. Volunteering has helped me immensely. Now, I won’t compare my loneliness. I have it worse than some and some have had worse than mine. I will say, however, that my experience volunteering was a bust the first few times, but because I really did it to help myself and my condition, not to help others. I was selfish, and when I realized I went to take not to give, things became a tiny bit clearer. I didn’t beat myself up over it — loneliness was enough of a bully — but I began leaving myself notes that behooved me to expect less and to give more. I suspect there’s a reason desire is treated as it is in Buddhism and why pride is said to go before a fall. Once I spanked myself into giving — the main point of volunteering — I found I started thinking less about myself and more about life outside my head. And I became less lonely. I didn’t make friends. I didn’t even make for-coffee acquaintances. But somehow, I could feel the loneliness lifting, even if I wasn’t surrounded by friends. People aren’t the cure for loneliness. Community is. By volunteering, I made a very tough decision to give part of myself to a community that I felt had rejected me, and in doing so, I felt as if I became a part of it once again. Maybe, in a way, I was sneaking in through the back. Every now and then the loneliness settles back in, and it can be so subtle at first that I don’t recognize what’s truly happening. But when I feel that bleakness, I have trained myself to go out and give. It’s a damn paradox, but in a universe influenced by weirdness like quantum mechanics, relativity, and the electoral college, paradoxes may be more apt than the most common of common sense. It’s hard work, but loneliness is harder. Cheers.
Volunteering has helped me momentarily. I’d volunteer whether I was lonely or alone or not. It feels like the right thing to do. It gets me out of my head momentarily. But it can sometimes also make me feel guilty for feeing lonely in the face of people who are worse off. And, I am very guilty of always comparing myself. I’ve volunteered where people with meager resources & language skills have come to the U.S. & are not necessarily lonely or alone. I then beat myself up since I have so much more than they do and yet still can’t find people to be with.
I’ve made some friends through volunteering. But it’s like my other post (about friends at work). They pigeonhole me as an e-mail friend; or maybe a lunch friend, though that’s rare since they are too busy with their real-life family and friends.
It’s still important to me to volunteer and be in the midst of a situation and mindset of helping others. But it really doesn’t make a dent in the lonely home that awaits me when volunteering is over.
I’ve met some people I like thru volunteering. I think it’s worthwhile if you like the cause and the activities. Also, you would, in theory, have that cause/interest in common and more likely to form friendships because of it.