Whether it is you who is approaching those golden years we call retirement or one of your loved ones is in those years, no question making that transition from the working world and decades of responsibility and hard work is not always easy. The sudden change of lifestyle and the feeling of no longer being helpful is one of the most challenging aspects of retirement and growing older. When you combine that with reduced activity and the natural decline in physical ability that aging brings, you have a powerful emotional transition.
That is why people who actively counsel the elderly have learned that the most positive thing a person can do to combat the depression and sense of ìuselessnessî' that plague retirees is to make themselves useful. And there is no better place for them to do that than in community service.
There are a variety of reasons why volunteering among the elderly is a great idea. If you are in a position to counsel an aging family member or friend, it is important to remember that community service is not all about being charitable and helping the down and out. It is just as much about the health and well-being of the retiree as it is for the good of the community and the people in it.
By getting out into the community and finding rewarding ways to perform community service, that sense of being needed and being a part of something is returned to the retiree. Community service and the retirement set are a perfect match for each other. People who are staffing community service projects always need an army of qualified and mature help, especially from those who have sufficient time to do an excellent job with a community service project.
This is right for retiree who, if anything, suffer with too much time on their hands. Too often, that time can be turned to self-pity or indulging in less-than-healthy lifestyle choices. Community service is, after all, work. As people enjoying the rewards from a lifetime of work, this is just the thing to transition to a life of retirement.
Community service can also call upon older people to participate in physical activity. Your local community service coordinator can now ensure their elderly volunteers are given assignments appropriate to their physical abilities. But just getting out there and greeting others, reading to the blind, helping with a food or blood drive, or jumping in where they can on an extensive community project gets the blood moving and maybe just the right kind of exercise they need to stay active and healthy.
Community service also provides opportunities to socialize with people of all ages and social backgrounds. One of the greatest dangers of a retirement lifestyle is the loneliness and isolation caused by stepping out of the working world. Even if the older adult lives in a retirement community, the chance to socialize with younger people and people of many backgrounds and orientations is tremendously healthy for the mental stability of one in that stage of life.
There are many benefits to the retiree of getting involved in community service. But giving that retired person that sense of personal value and worth they have come to expect from each dayís work is valuable beyond measurement. Many community service projects are short-term, so the volunteers get that immediate gratification that boosts anyone, but even more so, a retiree who feels left out and not helpful. Community service may be just the medicine to cure those ills.
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