When I started working as a volunteer in WWOOF program (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) I thought I’ll be doing only the noble jobs which almost directly make world a better place.
I volunteer as a WWOOFer in Skywater Rescue Ranch and Sanctuary – a place where sick or hurt birds are brought. They recover here and if possible, they are released back to their natural environment. I feed them, take care of them, watch how they are healed. I also had an opportunity to release a bunch of herons.
WWOOF volunteering – releasing herons
Sounds amazing, doesn’t it? And it is amazing. I contribute to making the number of wild birds grow.
But except for this I also clean up bird poop from a concrete terrace. The poops are not the smallest ones I must say because it’s mostly geese poop. I would compare its size to a poop of a small dog and their number is close to infinity. Once I also picked up a dead bird from the cage and put it in the freezer serving as a little morgue for feathered corpses until they get disposed.
Disgusting?
A bit.
But it’s a part of the whole process and it shows very well that achieving something great is not only rainbows and unicorns.
Unfortunately it’s often connected with many shitty tasks.
It’s not possible to rescue birds without cleaning up their poops from the terrace, without their peculiar smell or without roosters crowing at 5 a.m. The same as achieving any other success is not possible without going through not necessarily attractive tasks.
Is making your dreams come true an effect of luck of hard work?
An example. When I started to write a blog and develop it I set a goal. I want to help you, my reader organize your trips, to encourage you to volunteer, to motivate you to take a step towards your goals. And additionally to make a living doing what I love. It’s something that makes me jump up and down in excitement.
But I don’t really like all the steps necessary to achieve this goal. Because of the blog I spend way too much time in social media and in the Internet. I should learn basics of SEO – something that is not interesting for me at all. When I come back from work, instead of watching series and petting my cat, I turn my computer on and spend a few hours there (like I didn’t spend previous eight doing exactly the same thing) and I work on the blog.
I write a post, click some hearts on Instagram, post something on Facebook, take part in a webinar, edit my pictures. When I travel, instead of fully enjoying my time I try to manage a whole bunch of devices at once – I need perfect pictures on my DSLR camera, snaps on snapchat, a video on my sports camera and then “Adam wait, I still need a picture with my phone to post on the fanpage!!”. This is crazy!
Then I have to escape to the mountains which help me get my priorities right.
I am sure you want to achieve something too. Change your job or studies, learn to play the guitar, travel around the world. But for some reason you do nothing to get closer to your goal. You think about all the shitty task and consequences and you don’t feel like dealing with them. You don’t like getting dirty and what if you’ll not be able to get the dirt out from your nails?
But you know what? It’s not that bad. Especially if you realize that you can’t get away from routine, boring, unpleasant, stupid tasks. I guess you don’t want to bore yourself to death and achieve nothing in life.
So isn’t it better to remove the pile of shit blocking the way to your goal rather than throw it from left to right without moving forward? 🙂
So… ready to do something with your life? 🙂 Check the below guide and start planning!
You can also jump to the post explaining how WWOOF works. Remember working on a farm isn’t your only option, here’s what I was doing on Global Volunteer program with AIESEC. If you still aren’t fully convinced, check this post in which I asked Polish travel bloggers if it’s worth volunteering abroad 🙂
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Sometimes its the shitty things we have to do in our dailies live to reach our goals that make the goal worth while. It certainly reminds us what we had to do to get there.
Exactly 🙂
Nowadays the problem is people do things without really doing them (e.g. due to internet) – what makes them lazy and kind of unable to think for themselves. But it’s always heart-warming to be the one who does not waste life like they do and to have you trying to convince those miserable creatures to change their way of life 😀
Yep! The ultimate goal of the blog is to make people do something more with their lives than scrolling Facebook! 😀
Or chasing Pokemons 😀
[…] work on a farm sounded very abstract. And it was another interesting challenge! It taught me an important life lesson […]
[…] Volunteering abroad in my opinion is one of the best experiences you can have while travelling – and not only. Volunteering in Russia with AIESEC and WWOOF in the USA are some of my best memories – I got to know life in these countries well and they taught me a lot. […]
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