233.A volunteer's crucial vote
The lessons I learned as a volunteer in Africa could fill volumes. Before I embarked upon my voluntary voyage, I felt a huge void in my life. When I look back upon it, there was a certain vulgarity to my existence. I had not done anything meaningful in my twenties at all, unless you count getting a second-rate college degree an accomplishment. As my twenties waned and my thirties approached, I began to consider life more seriously. I felt maybe as if the warranty on my life was about to expire. The vulgar life of wine, women, and food, which only left me with an expanded waist and a vulnerable ego, was giving way to a voracious appetite for meaning. Sometimes it was as if my mind was a volcano erupting with a desire to figure out why I was put on this earth.