Volunteering & Happiness

Many people look for the secret to happiness; some believe that if they achieve a certain thing or buy a certain thing, they will gain happiness. These people rely on objects to make them happy. The other type would be the people who depend on others for their happiness, like their friends, family, or significant other. Regardless of which type of person you are, there is one particularly important thing that we can all do to be happy and simultaneously make someone else happy.

Happiness as studies show can be experienced by making other people happy. According to a study conducted, where a group of people were asked to treat themselves by taking a bubble bath or just focusing more on themselves, and the other group of people were told to engage in acts of kindness. After doing these activities each day, the people who engaged in acts of kindness were happier and more positive and had a better view of life whereas the people who treated themselves were still the same - negative and unhappy.

So how does one go about these acts of kindness, you ask? Well, the simplest answer is by volunteering. Volunteering can benefit the community and keep you happy because you know you are doing a good deed to help others and that makes you happy. Volunteering can be as simple as writing an article to help create awareness, or it can be as great as helping preserve habitats or working in a soup kitchen. Volunteering helps those in need and that is why it is perfect for everyone. It helps fight depression by bringing you in contact with others and building a support system for you and others. It also relieves stress, anger, and anxiety because by communicating you are developing a connection with people who can help you. Volunteering can make you healthier because you are in the great outdoors performing tasks to help people all around you. In a way volunteering is a way to help yourself.

Along with helping yourself it also teaches you important things to know for yourself. It is conveniently easy to get wrapped up in our daily lives, and volunteering enables you to step away from it all and think about something bigger than ourselves. Out of all the volunteering that you do, you might help someone; you might bring a smile on somebody else’s face or make up somebody’s day. This all will help you practice rejoicing in the good fortune and happiness of others. You will spend more time in the present as in a way it takes you away from your phone and keeps you grounded in reality. Be it spending time in an animal shelter or helping organize bake sales, this will help you de-stress and spend more time with yourself and others.

As Martin Luther King Jr. rightly said, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others?” So, we must ask ourselves, what are we doing for others? What is that something we can do to make somebody’s day? Are we ready to look beyond ourselves or go that extra mile for someone other than us?

Proud Indian is one such organization where our goal is to bring light into the lives of those who are less fortunate than us. We know we cannot help everyone out there but, we for sure know tiny grains of sand make up the vast body of ocean and, we believe in taking little steps towards the betterment of others, one at a time. The goal is not about how many people we have helped but how much impact we have brought in somebody’s life. Together, let’s stand for quality and not quantity!