The Fundamental Goodness of People
A friend of mine, whom I occasionally meet for a hike every few weeks, fosters dogs. She is a dog owner herself and obviously cares a lot about dogs to be able to do what she does. It involves bringing a new dog into her house and looking after it until the rescue organization she volunteers for finds an owner for it. This can take as little as a couple of weeks to as much as a few months. Not only does she have to ensure that the foster dog gets along with her own dog, she has to also often potty train the dog and until that has been done, clean up any accidents by the foster dog inside her home. For the initial days or weeks, however long it takes for the foster dog to get used to her and her house and her training, she cannot plan on any social events outside her house and is pretty much stuck at home.
To someone like me who is most certainly not a dog-lover, this seems unthinkable. Isn’t it already so much work to have your own dog? Why would you want to voluntarily take on even more of it? To me, it seems like bringing another baby into your house when you already have your hands full with your own.
Yet, people do this all the time. My friend told me that dog rescue shelters and adoption agencies have a lot of volunteers, people like my friend who go out of their way to look after dogs until they can find a permanent home. It is so heart-warming to hear that. I also marvel at the large number of volunteers in pretty much any field that requires them — soup kitchens, homeless shelters, rebuilding houses, reading to kids, visiting patients in hospitals, fostering kids, … the list goes on. In fact, I have often volunteered at an event to find that they already have so many volunteers that my help is really not necessary.
Setting aside my own feelings of uselessness at such volunteer events, it is so nice to find that there are so many people who have a genuine desire to help others in some way. With so much of strife in the world, it is easy to be cynical and think that most people are self-serving. But looking at the overwhelming number of volunteers for every conceivable cause — and it’s wonderful how there is something for everyone! — you can’t but not believe in the fundamental goodness of people.
As for myself, I was looking for a volunteer opportunity where I felt I was really needed and which was in sync with my capabilities. I found that in teaching kids how to code. It goes to show that there is indeed something for everyone — you just have to keep looking until you find it.
