'Tis Better to Give than to Receive

In the spirit of Christmas... Here's a picture from Elf (the best Christmas movie ever!!). 

And a Christmas-y inspirational quote: 

"It is better to give than to receive!"

Today's speaker was Dr. Barry Morris from the Office of Institutional Advancement, Professor Emeritus of Economics, and a member of the City Council.  He spoke to our class about fiscal responsibility and its importance in our lives and our civic engagement.  We all know that it's better to give than to receive, but you can't give until you have something to give.That's where fiscal responsibility comes in.  Getting your personal finances in order allows you to have the gift of serving others!

So this is what I learned:
-Don't put money where it will be depreciated, invest it somewhere so that it will grow.  For example, don't buy that fancy new $25,000 car- instead get it a nice wax to clean it up.  Instead of those $475 monthly payments for 60 months you'd have with that value depreciating car, invest your money for 60 months in an S&P index fund and end up with $2,146,000 by the time you retire at 65 years old.  So that fancy $25k car is really >$2million.  So to be a millionaire, you do not have to win the lottery!  Don't you just love logic?!
-Invest in the stock market!  Sure, the stock market fluctuates, but over 40 years you will have an increased return from when you started. This is shown in the very technical clip art here:

-Budgets are great!  And ALWAYS save a percent of your money.
-Don't buy things you don't need.
-Debt is great... if it's for a house.  "Not for pretzels and beer" according to Dr. Morris.

One thing that I really appreciated was Dr. Morris's enthusiasm about UNA.  He was excited for us and our future opportunities and experiences we will have in our college career.  UNA is definitely underestimated, but Dr. Morris pointed out that being underestimated is a blessing.  No one sees you as a threat and then (BAM!)  you're super awesome and they're unprepared.  He also said that students at UNA are lucky to be here!  (And we are!)  We have real professors that actually care about us, not a random grad student teaching 100 students in a lecture hall.  And UNA is super awesome in every possible way. Just a little rant from me to you :)

Have a wonderful week and good luck studying through finals!!

I only came here for two reasons...

Our last speaker was Dr. Tom Osbourne, a former history professor at UNA and a deacon in the Episcopal Church.  He told our class about his work with the Kairos and the Help Place, but he also talked about service work in general.  He pointed out the natural human reluctance to get involved with service work and why this reluctance is so common.

People say no for two reasons: Failure and time.

1. They are afraid of failure:  Being afraid of failure is never a good excuse.  You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.  And you don't loose anything for trying.  If failure does come, so does experience and a lesson learned.  So it's always a win-win situation to try, and a win-win situation is never a failure.  So failure only exists if you don't try.

2. They don't want to take the time:  Time is a very understandable reason to be hesitant to serve.  There are only 24 hours in a day, and they are packed with school, homework, work, extracurricular activities, the occasional fun event, and the even more occasional sleep.  So fitting in a long-term commitment to service work can sound overwhelming and even impossible at first.  But this problem can also be solved with two words: Time Management. I live by those two words with the help of my best friend (aka agenda).  And if a long-term commitment still won't work, volunteer a for a few different events throughout the year. There's always the fear of over-commitment, too.  One thing of which I know very well!  So if you HAVE TO say "No" every once and a while, it's okay.  I promise!

In short:

Don't be afraid to fail.

Time management can be achieved with your new best friend, the agenda.

Go volunteer!

Have some initiative!

Today's speaker was John Rusvlyan, the Immediate Past President of the Rotary Club. Their local cause is called Shoals Scholar Dollars.  In this program, they pay 2 years of college at NW Shoals to students who would not be able to pay for college without it who have at least a 2.5 GPA and have at least a 95% attendance.  I think this is a really awesome cause!  This is a cause that is much needed, and it's awesome that his group took the initiative to do this!

"Successful is the man who does today what you were planning to do tomorrow." 

Initiative.  That's what gets things done.  If everyone took the initiative to fix one thing in their community, we would never have an excuse to complain.  We would never have anything to complain about at all because we'd be doing something about it.  What a productive world that would be!  Everyone has ideas that can improve their community, so just go and make something happen.  Go figure it out today and keep working on it until you succeed and make a difference. 

Nike says it the best: "Just do it!" This doesn't apply to only civic engagement and community service; it goes with school work (and not procrastinating), organizations and clubs (planning that super cool event), and everywhere else there is a need.  So find a need and fix it... Today!

Platform Progress

This past Monday night, our speaker was MIA.  So rather than summarizing someone's words and inspiring you, I will take this opportunity to explain the service work I have done in the Shoals area so far and what my platform is shaping into.

1-Lions Lend a Hand:  I talked about this in an older post, so I won't bore you with details.  But this was volunteering at a historical site, which fits with my current platform of education.

2- United Way: UNA had their first United Way fundraiser of the year... Step Show! So I volunteered to help do the donation collection and count the money.  We made well over $1000 in collection buckets alone- which is absolutely fantastic! And I also got to see some of the show, which was wonderful (as always).  This does not really fit my platform, but United Way is such a great organization that helps in so many ways and I really enjoyed volunteering here.

3- Reverse Trick or Treating:  This was an event put on by one of my fellow Honors classmate, Jacob Ezell.  Around Halloween time, a group of 30ish UNA students went to Mitchell-Hollingsworth Nursing Home to talk and visit with the residence.  I really enjoyed myself there too!  I loved listening to all of the great stories that the residence told us, and we could tell that they really enjoyed the company too.  I definitely want to go back and volunteer at a nursing home, so I am thinking about working this in my platform somehow.

4- Gift Wrap with BBBS: This hasn't happened yet, but I did mention it in an earlier post, so this will just be a quick update.  We're getting several Honors Student Organization members to help wrap gifts at the mall around finals time. I love Christmas!! The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear, but the 2nd best way is to wrap presents.  So this is going to be so much fun! Can't wait!

So my volunteer work is kinda all over the place and not necessarily sticking to my platform.  But I have a crazy new idea for a platform that I am working on with the lovely Alyson Berry, another one of my Honors classmates.  Hopefully it will combine the awesomeness of Christmas, nursing homes, and singing- I'm sure you'll hear about this sometime in the future, but I think it will combine many things that I enjoy and hopefully make for a solid platform in time for next semester.  We shall see!