Make doing something for others your resolution
New Year’s Resolutions usually fail, I know mine do! We go too hard, too fast, trying to go from couch potato to 5 days a week in the gym for example, or dropping all cakes and biscuits from our diets from the stroke of midnight on December 31st.
One of the reasons why resolutions come to nought is that they’re usually done for ourselves. Doing something for others is a surefire way of succeeding, and it opens a doorway into self improvement too.
This winter has been tough for many. Heck, the last three years have been tough in all kinds of ways, and for a lot of people those challenges go back way further than that. I want to plant a seed with you, a suggestion for how 30 minutes of your time per week could make an enormous difference to someone else’s life. All you need is a telephone, a spare half hour, and a friendly disposition.
Covid, and the restrictions that came with it, highlighted the fact that there are a considerable number of people who live with few, or no, support structures. They are isolated, sometimes lonely, and that can have the knock on effect of leading to poor mental and physical health, not having what they need, and not knowing where to turn to ask for help.
That’s where a befriending service can come in. Befriending is exactly what it sounds like. Volunteers spend time talking with someone who could do with a chat. It can be as simple as that, but sometimes the simplest things can be the most effective. A lot of befriending is telephone based, but today so many people seem to be reluctant to pick up a telephone!
30 minutes to put warm sunshine into someone’s life, a smile on their face, a song in their heart, a skip in their step. It’s a superpower and we’d love to help make 2023 the year of the superhero.
There are people waiting right now, with projects like Bay Volunteers, Let’s BeFriends, and iCANN, both telephone-based and in person befriending. If you would like to find out more about befriending and how just half an hour per week could change a life, contact the Volunteer Centre.
