I'm No Social Worker
2023 - This was the year I learned this disappointing fact about myself. That I’m not really cut out for serious social service.
I can gladly give my money away, and I continue doing so liberally. But after a string of commitments this last year where I volunteered my time, I’ve made peace with the fact that I want my time to solely be spent on my own creative and intellectual pursuits.
It’s not hard be a weekend warrior and go do some volunteering every few Saturdays. I used to do that in the US with Habitat for Humanity - spending a pleasant morning every few Sundays doing basic construction work on housing projects for low-income communities. No big deal.
But if you have to be honest with yourself and consider yourself a true social worker, you’ve got to put people’s needs before your own. You’ve got to make it a large part of your identity and embrace a certain way of life that you either have a natural inclination for or you don’t.
Who was I kidding? I’m a selfish prick that puts me first before others.
My Short-Lived Dabbling With Social Service
2023 was the year I was overcome with the urge to submit myself to community service. I was interested in experimenting if this is something I can pursue seriously over the long term. What better way to fill your days after FIRE?
Early in the year, I began keeping a keen eye on the newspapers and local social media accounts to gather resources, NGOs, social-workers, community-service oriented whatsapp groups and what not. Within a few weeks, I was armed with a huge database of all kinds of social enterprises that I could get involved in in Bangalore.
And I excitedly jumped in.
I got involved with the NGO Arms Wide Open and wrote exams for a few visually challenged kids.
I donated blood at Rashtrotthana.
I got in touch with Bangalore’s one and only true-blue, badass social worker St. Broseph and partook in a food distribution program on the ocassion of his birthday.
I took the trouble to hang out at a street corner in my neighborhood and made this video of a deadly pothole that remained unattended to for months, edited the video and later reported it to the city council (BBMP) and to the office of our local MLA. The pothole was fixed a few days later, although I’m not sure whether I should take credit for getting this taken care of. I’ll take the liberty of wishful thinking and pat myself on the back here.
And a few more…
I applied to be a Math and Science teacher at U&I and eagerly awaited a response from the team.
I tried hard to arrange for shelter for a young, intelligent looking woman that was begging and living on the streets in our locality. I once spoke to the woman, who said she had lost her job and was evicted out of her rental. Having watched this video, I made a handful of calls to many NGOs but only got empty promises about offering shelter. After some more futile follow-ups, I gave up. And one day the lady just disappeared from the neighborhood. I can only hope her situation has improved!
I had a daily routine of browsing the Bangalore subreddit, looking for troubled souls crying for help. I stumbled upon this about-to-graduate college kid that was on the verge of getting evicted from his hostel and nowhere to go. While other Redditors were shitposting in the comments, I got in touch with him, spoke to him personally and offered words of courage, and covered his hostel rent for two months (Rs. 7,000 per month) while he frantically looked for a job. He has since found a job and is now financially self-sufficient.
And Then I Was Done…
As I lived through it all, a creeping sense of burn-out was sneaking up on me. I’m a fairly disciplined schedule-oriented guy that likes to plan his day out in advance and then stick to the plan. Social service on the contrary has a very ad-hoc nature to it. Things crop up constantly and unpredictably. And as you help people out, those that aren’t mentally strong come to rely on you for emotional support and begin treating you like their savior, frequently calling you on the phone, sometimes just for the comfort of hearing your voice, other times to seek your advice. It gets exhausting.
A few months down, I was thoroughly desensitized. Empathy had given way to apathy. It’s hard to care when you get the same message for the 100th time for volunteers to donate blood to an accident victim, or set aside yet another half a day to write exams for visually challenged kids, or to go clean up a trash-ridden street. After a while, I found myself marking those unending Whatsapp messages as spam.
There also was always a voice of dissent in my head that kept reminding me that this is not a good use of my time.
Existential crisis hits you when you find yourself on the street doing menial voluntary work. Those self-deprecating thoughts, heartless though they may sound, are hard to ignore - “Fool, you’ve got all this untapped potential and look what you’re doing. People your age are out there raising millions in venture-capital funding, building multi-million dollar startups and here you are, wasting away, helping kids with their 12th grade history exams, writing an essay on Mahatma Gandhi’s Salt Satyagraha.”
Ouch! That train of thought and the related comparison-games hurts that little ego-monster inside. Here’s a side note on this human nature that constantly compares oneself with others.
If you FIRE, the one thing you would want to passionately avoid is LinkedIn. The platform has a real potential to stoke up feelings of insecurity and inadequacy. You see all your friends and ex-colleagues moving on with their careers, and unless you’re a rockstar at managing your emotions, you’ll be flooded with toxic thoughts.
Be ready for stings of jealousy - “Wow, that mediocre guy that you ocassionally used to work with is now a Principal Engineer? Holy crap, that loud-mouth manager that didn’t know shit other than yapping during meetings is now a Director?”
Also brace yourself for evil giggles of sadistic satisfaction - “Lol, that guy that always talked about wanting to change jobs is still rotting away at the same place, working on that same shit project.”
I’m not immune to these sick reactions. I’m guessing most people aren’t. So if you don’t wanna entertain these disgusting thoughts, get off this circlejerk cesspool called LinkedIn if at all you drop off the career race.
Looking Ahead…
Helping a guy here, serving a troubled soul there just isn’t scalable. I’ve come to believe that I could have a much larger impact and make this a scalable endeavour if I instead spent my time in ambitious, financially-rewarding capitalistic pursuits which would enable me to make large monetary donations in the future.
I’ve been a huge fan of the selfless work that Dushyant Dubey (with the pseudonym St. Broseph) has been doing in Bangalore. I’ve followed his journey very closely and have even personally expressed my interest in being one of his main financial backers, at least until he gets too big and famous and attracts far richer donors. I’ve been regularly sending him monetary donations.
The guy, just 32 years of age, has already made up his mind to dedicate his life to social work and has given up on his stable career in marketing and has also mentioned that he won’t be marrying. He has built up quite an army of volunteers and runs his operations out of a place he has rented and designated as his headquarters.
So far I’ve sponsored to get him a couple beefy laptops for his operations with a donation of Rs. 1 lakh.
And I once sponsored to cover therapy and psychological counseling for a girl facing domestic abuse that he helped get out of. Besides these one-time expenses, one of my new year resolutions for 2024 is to make him a monthly donation of Rs. 10 thousand for as long as I can. If I start working a software job and begin seeing disposable income again, then there’ll be more money going to him as long as he continues his selfless social work.
Besides that, I’ll continue trying to keep up with donating blood once every 4 months. I’ll also maybe get out very ocassionally for street-level volunteer work whenever I have nothing better to do.
Preferences could always change as one gets older. The one reassuring realization I’ve had here is that if I ever get to a point in life where I feel I have nothing else left to live for, then there’s always social service to fall back to. It can keep you busy and fulfilled for the rest of your days. And it’s undoubtedly way better than spamming on Whatsapp and bingeing YouTube Shorts all day that I see most older folks around me lost in.
Closing Up…
So that’s my little monologue on bowing out from being a street-level social worker and leaning toward being a behind-the-scenes small-scale donor.
U&I got back to me on my application to teach Math and Science expressing an interest to interview me. But my stint with social service had run out of steam by then and I ghosted them.
And the city corp did a shoddy work filling up that pothole with loose gravel and sand that has all washed off and the pothole is back again, deadly as ever. But this time however, you won't see a dog-faced human standing by that hole making yet another video…
Talk soon,
- Dog
Hey Nitin, Thanks for writing. Although I believe folks who has the means to dedicate their time and energy for social cause, They wont try. And also thanks for honestly sharing that this is not ur cup of tea. I agree that you could do lot more impact via financial donation to meaningful organtions.
I don't think you're a selfish 'prick' at all. I read somewhere that it can seem selfish when one hasn't had all their needs met in a long time, and has gotten used to putting other's needs before their own. I try to help only when I'm content with having had my way all the way through (which rarely happens).
PS: I didn't know the gravel+sand solution was complete by itself. I've been naively waiting for bbmp to do something to my local road's patchwork after they left it 'incomplete'.