Your Byline

It's so easy for most of us to envision volunteerism as just another check mark on the checklist or a crossed out item on a lengthy agenda. And that's, sadly, a bit of an unspoken norm in our society today; we don't put enough effort into making a difference when we get the chance to. But, as we know, opportunites to make a difference come by once in a blue moon. If Napoleon hadn't taken the opportunity to walk onto the historical stage at just the right time as it came to him, he'd probably not end up in our history books. It's just the same for just about anyone we help by being a compassionate volunteer, whether their brains are half-developed, fully developed, or fried.

It's selfish but also not selfish to consider a volunteering experiece as a trademark. It sounds weird, but I'll explain. When writers are writing their books, they spend hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades crafting their stories and exponentially more time than that simply perfecting the story. Everyone at some point starts to get a bit antsy about publishing their magnum opi, and that's why we find so many unfinished journeys in print. The critics can dig in at any point to any book, but what remains the same regardless of the title, the date of the review, or the quality of the story is the byline. That's YOUR NAME or pen name, and it refers to you. It's a proven fact that you wrote the book, proof of ownership of your story. Your brand name has been etched and tagged onto and associated with the book in an intimately deep way when the byline is finally added and you see it in stores. If that is the case, then, we must concert ourselves with only the best works possible when we hold it up to the public and claim it as our own. That's in our self-interest, of course, and it's a sensible and understandable thought to have.

The thing about this idea of branding and claiming ownership is that it not only works to have you put more thought into your product or story, but that it then contributes more to the recipients of your product or service. If your story is more meaningful because you want to be associated with an amazing book, you will then make more of an impact on your readers. In the exact same way, what we do and become associated with as volunteers will invariably affect the recipients of our service. It shows, let me tell you. I've heard from a lot of the kids I work with about which volunteer they preferred on that particular day or during a particular activity, and those conversations sound eerily similar to kids elsewhere who discuss the superiority of their outfits based on where they got their shoes from or what brands they can afford.

As a trademark, your methodology is guaranteed to be unique because it's presented that way to the public- the way you make a difference is supposed to be creative and reflective of who you are. We wrapped up our year of volunteering, for example, with a fun activity that pushed our kids to think outside the box. It was undeniably the funniest and most different experience I, and they, had had all year. We took plastic multicolored forks and demonstrated our own creative uses for how we could have used them other than eating, and we found a great deal of fun in doing so. These kids were so much more creative than they thought they were, so much more capable. The experience of just being a part of that, or having the honor of taking that experience under a byline, is reward enough for thinking just a little bit further when considering showing the best of ourselves and our compassion when we volunteer. And just think about it- if we go around stamping our trademarks on the things we're most proud of, someday we're bound to see our Napoleon-sized legacies in just the way we wish to make them.