Reasons Why We Should Be Doing Community Service
Reasons Why We Should Be Doing Community Service
A former president of the United States once said, “We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.” We all know that by doing community service, we’re essentially helping other people, but there’s actually more to it that benefits us. By volunteering, you can have positive impacts on your physical and mental health, increase your networking, improve your social skill, and even advance your career.
Benefits of community service:
1. Physical and mental health
Based on the studies found, it is proven that those who do community service have fewer chances for stress and depression. This is due to the fact that by doing community service, you developed a meaningful connection with others. Those people become your friends that will help you build a strong support system to combat stress and depression. By doing community service, we also make ourselves happier because human beings are hard-wired to give to others. The more we give, the happier we become. Community service also helps you stay physically and mentally fit because you’ll be doing lots of activities that will definitely challenge your brain and brawn. Finally, community service provides you with a sense of purpose in life. Surely we’re all created in this world with a purpose and I believe that helping others is one of them. Doing community service gets you a sense of fulfillment that money can’t buy.
2. Networking
Doing community service increases your networking. Committing to an activity together is actually one of the best ways to make new friends. It is a great way to meet new people, especially in the area that you’ve never visited before. It introduces you to a whole new community where you can create special bonds and also increase your social awareness on the issue that’s happening in that community. Through community service, you can also learn new skills from other people. Ever heard of the quote ‘If you’re the smartest person in the room, then you’re in the wrong room.’ – Confucius? You can never learn too much from other people, networking with other professionals who have a diverse range of skills and experience puts you in the perfect position to learn from those who know more than you do.
3. Social skill
By joining community services, you will have many opportunities to deepen your social skills, because there will be so many people you meet and it will make you become accustomed to interact with new people. In the end, you can use these skills in your daily life and make it easier for you to have more friends which will broaden your knowledge and perspective. With good social skills, you can build closer relationships with friends, family, and even your colleagues, so that it can also improve the quality of your life. Interesting, right?
4. Advance your career
If you find it difficult to determine which department you are interested in or you feel like trying something new, then the right choice is to do community service. Why? Because by doing community service, you can open up lots of new insights and try new things right away, so you will get a lot of experience. You can also hone new skills or practice the skills you already have and improve them. These things will really help in finding the interests or talents that you want to make as your career. Not only that, community service can also give you very useful lessons to support your career life because you will get used to working in teams, then you can understand how to communicate well with colleagues. You will also be accustomed to solving problems that will arise in future upfront and many more valuable lessons that you can get. With a wider network, it is not impossible for you to get to know some important people who will take you to professional organizations or internships that can benefit your career.
Remember, when you decide to do community service, you use your time for it, so you must be able to maximize the benefits and experience that you can get and make sure to take lessons during the activities taking place. Before doing community service, you also need to pay attention to a few things. First, rethink what you want to try and learn so that you have clear goals. Second, find out as much as possible about the institution that you will join as a volunteer and make sure the institution can help you to achieve your goals. Third, don’t be afraid to make changes because it can actually make you grow for the better. Finally, be yourself and don’t force yourself to be another person just because you feel like you won’t be accepted. If you insist on being another person, even when you are accepted, it will not bring satisfaction to yourself and you won’t be able to learn and get experience optimally. In the end, it is important to really determine what expectations and goals you want to get, so that it will help you maximize the benefits of community service that you do and your time will not be wasted in vain.
Writers: David Samuel Setiawan, Refrira Nabaan Marsha Nurprasetyo
Editor: Ratu Annisa Gandasari