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Volunteer Work

People who succeed at turning volunteer work into a nice part of their lives should give the rest of us advice. What is their secret?

For the second time I signed up to work on the continental divide trail, and then canceled out. It is frustrating. I'm not blaming them. Organizations such as the Forest Service or the trail association have their ways of doing things; cantankerous, independent people (like me) don't like being told how to do things. It's not that I'm unwilling to be a team player or to defer to any kind of supervision. But I just seem unwilling or unable to allow anyone else to impose their schedule or calendar on me; it seems like a type of rape.

If so, then it is an example of how my fears were right all those years about early retirement and full time RVing undermining my moral character!

The bigger the organization, the more likely it is to have some salaried, 30-year-old, volunteer coordinator who sits in a cubicle in front of her computer, playing with Powerpoint, and generating tons of informational detritus. Imposing rules and calendars on the lowly volunteers probably gives her a feeling of real power and control.

But do I really know all this, or am I just projecting my anti-bureaucratic prejudices onto the situation?

Anyway, this is a defeat for me. If a fellow doesn't make friends doing things he loves, then a totally solitary life results. Suffering disappointment or working around it is part of any job, and being independent is a job or profession. It is not a romantic, escapist vacation.

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