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!