After working all morning and afternoon outside getting scratched up and smelly from dragging, cutting, and burning honeysuckle, the word that comes to my mind is “satisfied.” Today we helped a group called Friends of the White River clear some of the invasive honeysuckle from the river bank, and I feel great after such a hard day’s work. I love hands on volunteer projects where I am doing something the whole time I am volunteering, and where I still have to use my brain to complete the tasks. Today’s work was much more satisfying than a lot of the mind-numbing tasks I feel like a lot of volunteer projects entail.
I want to expand on my feeling of satisfaction a little bit, because I feel satisfied for a multitude of reasons. I feel satisfied from cutting, dragging, and burning the honeysuckle plants because we could actually see the difference we were making on the river bank. I also feel satisfied from all the learning I did today. The members of the organization we worked with were incredibly informative and friendly the whole day. They are all very hard workers and are clearly passionate about the work they do to help make this earth a greener place to live. I felt satisfied after learning all they had to teach us about why honeysuckle is invasive, because it made me realize that there are a lot of other relatable things in this world. By that I mean a lot of things we use all the time because we believe them to be really helpful could actually be more harmful than helpful. Another thing that makes me feel satisfied is that I got to spend the whole day outside today on this beautiful (almost) spring day with some wonderful people that I have only known for a short while. I absolutely love the outdoors and just enjoying the subtle beauties in nature, and I got to do that all day today, which I haven’t done in quite some time.
I want to end by mentioning my satisfaction with our group reflection today. I love all our reflections, and today was no exception. I felt like we were really just having a conversation about our day and all the things we learned and had fun with instead of feeling forced to reflect about certain topics. I am growing to love Indy more and more every day as well, because every day I am exposed to a new aspect of it. I just think that this city is very underrated for how much they are contributing to the sustainability of this earth, and how strong of a community vibe they exert. During reflection, we made a list of all the great things about Indy that we want to share with others back in Springfield, as well as things we like and want to change in Springfield and on our very own campus. I’m so thrilled that our group is as determined to find a way to make a difference together as we are, even after only doing two days of service as a group. I cherish the bond we have formed, and I want others to realize and remember the quote “many hands make light work” -John Heywood. So always be open to doing service with a group, because it truly does make a difference not only in productivity terms, but in overall mood and life satisfaction, which is clearly the focus of my blog today.
As the topic of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson came up in reflection today, I’ll leave you all with a quote about nature that I personally find very inspiring:
“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Catch you later!