A Fulfilling Day<\/u><\/p>\n
\u2018Ugh. What a great way to waste my weekend.\u2019\u00a0 I exclaimed.\u00a0 I still couldn\u2019t believe the fact that the school made voluntary service compulsory for every student. \u00a0I meant was what I could gain from these useless services? \u00a0It was 12\u00b0C outside and I had to start the flag-selling service at 9 a.m.. This was simply ridiculous.\u00a0 I was supposed to wake up at noon and enjoy my laid back holiday today, but the service ruined everything. \u00a0Reluctantly, I got up from bed and get ready for that \u201cfar from voluntary\u201d flag-selling service.<\/p>\n
\u2018It\u2019s freezing outside! \u00a0Why people do this voluntarily? \u00a0Don\u2019t they have better things to do during weekends?\u2019 \u00a0I thought to myself. \u00a0\u2018Well, this service will become part of my extracurricular activities record, so I guess this isn\u2019t completely useless.\u00a0 Right at 12p.m., I will be completely done with this,\u2019 I shrugged and unwillingly headed to the destination.<\/p>\n
The service started at 9a.m. and I didn’t even make any effort to persuade the pedestrians passing by to buy the flag. \u00a0I saw other volunteers saying hi to everyone, taking the initiative to walk forward to them, carefully pasting the small stickers on their clothes. \u00a0Many of them were rejected by the strangers for multiple times. \u00a0Still, their smiling didn\u2019t fade and they refused to give up.\u00a0 They kept greeting all pedestrians cheerfully, making the same invitation for their kind donations.\u00a0 At that point, I was quite ambivalent about their acts. \u00a0On one hand, I felt like they were so silly that they wasted their epic aspiration on such a trivial activity. \u00a0On the other hand, I felt like they were so passionate to serve society, to serve the needy whom they had never met. \u00a0They were willing to sacrifice their Saturday morning, repeating the humble request to the people passing by to buy the flag.\u00a0 I hated to admit this, but I actually appreciated their enthusiasm to serve others. \u00a0I then looked at myself. I hadn\u2019t even uttered my first invitation.\u00a0 The bag that I was holding was empty. \u00a0During my 16 years of life, I had never thought about reciprocating society. Immediately, I felt a little bit guilty. \u00a0But still, I refused to compensate my indifference in the past. \u00a0I still thought that my interests were the most important and I owed nobody any deeds of kindness. \u00a0\u2018It\u2019s none of my business,\u2019 I tried to convince myself.\u00a0 It was then this person appeared in front of me.\u00a0 His good deed gave a slap on my face of vanity. My admiration for him was beyond words.<\/p>\n
I guessed he was around my age, or a bit older than me. The largest difference between him and me was that, he had his genuine love and care for those in need, which I found myself lacking.\u00a0 I was in the midst of the service, estimating impatiently how long I still had to stay there.\u00a0 This young man really caught my attention.\u00a0 He was also one of the many volunteers of that day\u2019s service.\u00a0 However, it was what and how he served others made him different.\u00a0 He was helping a skinny hunchback old woman to carry her cardboards. \u00a0I could assure you that it was not a trivial task. \u00a0The cardboards he was carrying weighted at least a dozen pounds or more. \u00a0There was no way he could do it effortlessly. \u00a0Still, he carried the cardboards for the weak old lady. Out of my curiosity, I followed them to see where they were heading to.<\/p>\n
I heard a bit of the conversation.\u00a0 The young man was introducing himself to the lady.\u00a0 I observed the interaction between them. \u00a0They certainly didn\u2019t know each other. \u00a0It was the young gentleman who volunteered to help the elderly lady to lighten her load. This was very surprising to me. \u00a0I had never thought that anyone would offer help to people that they didn\u2019t know, especially when the task was much far from being a piece of cake. \u00a0His strength and sweat sacrificed would surely get no return. \u00a0But then, the young man just kept walking with the old lady, chatting with her about her daily life. \u00a0Were the cardboards always so heavy?\u00a0 Had she had her breakfast yet?\u00a0 His questions showed his genuine concern for the lady.<\/p>\n
This scene definitely gives me food for thought. \u00a0How generous one has to be, that he can do a total stranger such a generous favour? \u00a0How selfless one has to be, that he can be so devoted to helping others? \u00a0That young gentleman impresses me and leaves me in deep reflection. \u00a0How self-centred I am, that I can watch people suffer with folded arms? \u00a0What a distorted value I have been clinging to.\u00a0 I thought doing voluntary services was a waste of time? \u00a0What can I do to compensate for my fallacious belief and selfish deeds in the past? \u00a0What can I do?<\/p>\n
I kept following them and found them in a rather dirty alley. \u00a0What they did made me stand in stunned silence. \u00a0They were collecting cardboards together! \u00a0To be exact, it was that young man who collected the cardboards for the old lady! \u00a0His actions spoke loud to manifest the best role model for a good person doing good deeds.\u00a0 To convert my guilt into constructive actions that could help others, I walked up to the alley. This time, I could feel my sincere heart for contributing my effort to help this old lady. \u00a0Spending nearly an hour working in a dark dirty alley, I kept huffing and puffing and I was soon soaked in sweat.\u00a0 I felt exhausted.\u00a0 However, never in my life had I felt more satisfied<\/p>\n
At the end of the service day, my bag was still empty. \u00a0However, my heart was fulfilled with a fruitful experience in which I learnt one of my most valuable lessons in life.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Fulfilling Da<\/u>\u2018Ugh. What a great way to waste my weekend.\u2019\u00a0 I exclaimed.\u00a0 I still couldn\u2019t believe the fact that the school made voluntary service compulsory for every student. \u00a0I meant was what I could gain from these useless services? \u00a0It was 12\u00b0C outside and I had to start the flag-selling serv.........Read More<\/a>","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":8474,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","language-en","classlevel-s4","schoolyear-77"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/194"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6012"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6013,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6012\/revisions\/6013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}