A week and a half ago, I had the honor of going to going to Relay fFr Life in Lumpkin County with my sorority and the UNG Honors Program. While I was not there the whole 12 to 13 hours, I was there for almost 11 hours. But most importantly, I was there for the luminary walk, where survivors and those who lost their battle were honored and remembered. I walked around the field where dozens and dozens of names were written on luminary bags. We all walked and cried together. We all that that names (or those few names for me) that we were thinking walking around that football field. But it was no longer a football field, it was a place to come together for a cause that was bigger than all of us.
Sometimes, being in college makes you become self-centered and selfish. Because as a college student myself, I focus a lot on my time, my grades, my friends, my husband, my life. Sometimes we get caught up in our daily lives, and we tell ourselves we are too busy to help others. We say that we are too busy to go to that philanthropy event. We say we are too busy to go visit that person in the hospital. But being a part of something bigger than ourselves in college is vitally important.
When you're helping others, you're growing as a person. You are changing two lives, not just the person you think you're helping or visiting. Raising money at Relay for Life could help find the cure for cancer, raising money for a philanthropy could help save a child's life. But it's changing you, too. College is when you find yourself and you are finding out who you are. Don't you want to be a person who changes lives for the better?
Get involved on your campus, talk to people, go to the local hospital and volunteer for a few hours. You learn so much about other people, and the benefit is you get from helping others is more than any of my words can describe.
I was in a job interview on Friday, and the interviewer said that she needed to take a page out of my book when volunteering. But my response was that I just feel it's important to change a life. No matter what you do, how you do it, or how many lives you change, it's important to just change one. Because changing that one life, will lead you to change more and more as you go through life because helping people makes you feel good. So, today or tomorrow, talk to someone who's sitting alone, volunteer somewhere, just go out and make someone happy.
