I was reflecting on why it is I love volunteering and serving others. I know that the things I have done and continue to do make a small difference to someone, somewhere. I don’t always know who it is that it helps, but for me that is not the point. And so I asked myself, how does it touch my life?

Involvement in helping other communities or individuals always helps me appreciate my own life more; it allows me to jump my personal hurdles each and every day. It lets me pick myself up on the bluest of my days to get on with the business of living positively. It empowers me to be stronger, more resilient and to look outside of myself; to view the world and whatever is going on in my own life as something to be grateful for, something to learn and grow from.

It has helped eliminate my inner fears of difference I might have felt towards others, stopped my judgment of those people who appear other to me. Some years ago I am ashamed to say, I judged the homeless vendors selling The Big Issue magazine by not buying from them as I believed it was a radical political or religious paper. I gave absolutely no thought to the person behind the publication, nor even bothered to find out what a sale might mean to them. After seeing a documentary about the magazine, I not only now know it is an organisation that gives a hand up not a hand out, but the incredible people who are brave enough to stand on the streets of the world in order to earn the pittance of $2.50 per magazine – yes, less than a cup of latté costs – the magazine is helping to change the lives of others in very real ways.

Helping others, in whatever way, but especially when the personal factor is added in and I get to know real people whose lives may be made a little better by one small action of my own, has instilled in me a much greater generosity of spirit and love. It has made the world a much shinier and more beautiful place to live in, and gives me far more to smile about every moment of every day. The world has become my community, and being in service to that community will continue to be one of my daily goals.