{"id":2210,"date":"2012-07-13T10:08:08","date_gmt":"2012-07-13T15:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/?p=2210"},"modified":"2013-04-29T09:46:23","modified_gmt":"2013-04-29T14:46:23","slug":"create-some-time-to-give-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/?p=2210","title":{"rendered":"Create some time to give back"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Volunteering is great, but who has the time? Like exercise, eating veggies, and taking vacations, giving back to our community is one of those &#8220;obvious&#8221; things that\u00c2\u00a0we may feel we <strong><em>should <\/em><\/strong>do.<\/p>\n<p>Frequently, though, day-to-day chores may get in the way. We feel too tired at the end of a long day to even think about adding anything else. What we may not realize is that adding volunteer work can-like physical exercise-energize our lives.<\/p>\n<p>One of my friends has a t-shirt that reads: &#8220;Volunteer Work: It Doesn&#8217;t Pay.&#8221; While that may appear to be true, and did elicit a loud chuckle from me, there are many ways in which volunteer work does reward us.<\/p>\n<p>We all have passions. The things we desire to do may be things we are naturally good at; talents, skills we don&#8217;t get to use in our present work, or making a contribution towards something that we feel is important to our society.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not sure about you, but my main barrier to volunteer work is that I over-estimate the level of involvement I need to make in order for my efforts to be meaningful. \u00c2\u00a0That my contribution must involve a high level of time in order to be valuable. Have you ever felt this way?<\/p>\n<p>Taking on too much rapidly leads to burn-out. While it can be amazing to get out there and break new ground, working into the early hours of the morning to achieve our dreams&#8230;it&#8217;s just as valuable to give back in small ways on a consistent basis.<\/p>\n<p>At Splasm Software, we are given one day a quarter to volunteer. I&#8217;ve never had this type of opportunity at previous places of employment. In the past, I&#8217;ve had to squeeze in volunteer work in the evenings or on the weekends. \u00c2\u00a0This quarter, I chose to use the skills I&#8217;ve developed here at Splasm, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.splasm.com\/newsletter\/\">creating newsletters<\/a>, and made a quarterly newsletter for <a title=\"Spiral Natural Foods\" href=\"http:\/\/www.spiralnaturalfoods.coop\/\" target=\"_blank\">Spiral Natural Foods<\/a>, my local co-op:<\/p>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/?attachment_id=2238\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2238\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-2238\" title=\"Spiral Natural Foods\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Spiral-Foods-791x1024.jpg\" width=\"384\" height=\"497\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Spiral-Foods-791x1024.jpg 791w, https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Spiral-Foods-231x300.jpg 231w, https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Spiral-Foods.jpg 1275w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>What are you passionate about?<\/p>\n<p>What is one small way you can use your talents to create the type of community you want to live in, and\/or leave to the next generation?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Volunteering is great, but who has the time? Like exercise, eating veggies, and taking vacations, giving back to our community is one of those &#8220;obvious&#8221; things that\u00c2\u00a0we may feel we should do. Frequently, though, day-to-day chores may get in the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/?p=2210\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2210"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2237,"href":"https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2210\/revisions\/2237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}