Making a Difference

This morning, after spending a good deal of the night up with Lucy, because she needed me, I found myself simply unable to get it together to go to a meeting I had on my calendar.  I felt really bad about not attending, and even worse about being unable to give the chair a “heads up” that I would not be in attendance. I will write him a note to say sorry, but I got to thinking about what I have done and not done on this committee since I joined last September.  Until January, my mind was elsewhere as my brother’s health worsened and he died, and then I had bronchitis this spring, so I was again not in shape to go to some of the meetings, let alone participate in the wonderful work that the committee does. I wondered what they would talk about, and if there was work for me to do there, but I have concluded that although I joined with the best of intentions, I have not pulled my weight, as it were. I have determined to resign from this committee, although the people were very nice and welcoming, because I feel that if I sit on a committee, their mission has to be mine, and their charter mine as well.

And isn’t that what we all want and need? To feel useful, and to feel as if what we put our minds and hearts and efforts to is accomplishing something that is important to us? Sometimes the most important work that we do is to offer a smile and a kind word where it is needed, and sometimes it means going through our closets and culling the things we don’t use for the use and pleasure of someone else. One is not more important than another, but what we do needs to make a difference in our own mind and heart. The people who receive the benefit of what this committee does are lucky that there are people who give their free time over to the health of the community and what it deems important.  The people who do the work are also lucky that they have the health and vitality to help others and to feel like they are making a difference.

So this is what I am going to do.  I am going to find another group who needs help, who I feel I can help, and hope that the effort that I put in will make a difference. To the people who I met who are doing the work of the committee, you are a terrific group of hard workers, and I am happy to have met you. I hope that we can meet again in some other effort where I can feel more effective.