Why You Should Volunteer When You’re Old
Volunteer When You’re Old – When you finally retire after a long life of working, it could seem quite tempting to wind down and settle in to your later years. But how are you planning to fill your time? If you were smart, you’ll have a great pension and if you were popular and kind, you’ll have lots of friends to spend your time with. So, are you going to holiday four times a year and spend your time on the golf course? You could do, but you could also spend some of your time volunteering.
So, why should you volunteer when you’re old?
There are so many reasons.
Keep Your Routine
Routine can be one of the first things to go out of the window when you retire. The daily grind of getting up on time, eating three square meals a day, commuting and then recovering was something you’d put up with all of your life, and now that it’s gone, you’re tempted to have a break from all that. Volunteering can provide just enough routine to keep you honest, without the stresses and pressures of your old working life.
Give Something Back
Chances are, that if you’ve reached retirement in good shape, you’ve had a lot of help along the way from a lot of different people and organisations. Deciding to volunteer, is a way of paying that forward and helping others who may be in the early stages of their life. You know what it’s like, how tough it can be. Depending on which area of volunteering you go into, you could make a real difference.
Learn New Things
It’s never too late to learn something new and you definitely can teach an old dog new tricks. Getting into volunteering could spark a new interest, give you a hunger to learn new things, and even present an opportunity for you to meet new people whilst you do it. If you’re spending a lot of time sitting around and wondering what to do, it could be time to get into volunteering.
Great Exercise
It depends on what type of volunteering you decide to do, of course, but you could choose to do something which doubles up as a great form of exercise. Answering the phones in a call centre is a good way of volunteering, but it won’t match the step count of volunteering in a conservation field for example. You could even volunteer with a local sports team. Life in the old dog yet?
Why Not?
There are so many reasons as to why you should volunteer, and not that many as to why you shouldn’t at least give it a try. So, what do you do next? Work out how much time you can give and try to think of the areas you’d be interested in volunteering in, and then look for an opportunity in your local area. There will always be people, charities and organisations looking for the kind of experienced help that you can offer. Give it a go!
