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 %VOLUNTEER PERSON COMMUNAL HEALTH INTEGRITY ADDICT 930227

     The  long  term success of any new effort to  improve
and  maintain  the health of a community will depend  upon
the sustained development of new patterns of volunteerism.
Getting  people who are already over-committed in existing
volunteer roles to shift their priorities in  volunteering
will not be the key to sustained success.  The key must be
found  in  new  ways to encourage people  who  are  under-
committed  to  become committed to balanced  budgeting  of
both   their  time  and  resources---in  support  of  both
personal and communal integrity---for both themselves  and
their neighborhood.

     To  be successful in  getting new people to volunteer
in  healthy ways,  the new people must not feel that  they
are  being tempted,  seduced or coerced  into  unbalanced,
unplanned,    unbudgeted  and/or  unrestrained  giving  of
themselves  and/or their resources.  They must know how to
avoid being victimized by people who are skilled in taking
advantage of imprudently generous people.  The best-seller
book "One Minute for Myself"  presents in simple ways many
insights   which  will  pervade  the  kind   of   balanced
volunteerism that will be essential to a sustained project
which will succeed or fail through healthy volunteerism.

     New  volunteers  need  to  volunteer  with  a  secure
knowledge  and  understanding  of  the  risks inherent  in
volunteering to help, especially in situations where there
are many dysfunctional people who are victims of their own
and   other  people's  collusive  games  of  mutual   self
deception  which  involve  addictive   and/or  codependent
perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors.

     Volunteers need  to  know  how  to  defend themselves
against  getting  dragged  into patterns  of  perceptions,
beliefs, attitudes and behaviors---which involve:

     DISHONESTY         DECEPTION       PRETENSE

     CONFUSION          REPRESSION      FORGETFULNESS

     Dysfunctional people are victims of either/or patters
of thought which are compulsively focused upon:

     GOOD/EVIL          RIGHT/WRONG     MORAL/IMMORAL

     US/THEM            REWARD/PUNISH   GOD/DEVIL

     TRUE/FALSE         FORBID/PERMIT   SUCCEED/FAIL

     PERFECT/IMPERFECT  CONFORM/REBEL   ELATE/DEPRESS

     NOW/NEVER          WHITE/BLACK     VIRTUOUS/SINFUL

     IN/OUT             ACCEPT/REJECT   FAMILY/ALIEN

     Dysfunctional  people spend  much  of  their time and
effort in attempts to be in control through:

     MANIPULATIONS      REWARDS         PUNISHMENTS

     LECTURES           LAWS            MORALIZING

     TABOOS             PERMISSIONS     AMBIGUITIES

     SILENCES           REPRESSIONS     SUPPRESSIONS

     JUDGMENTS          ETHICS          DECEPTIONS

     COERCIONS          VIOLENCE        THREATS

     FAVORS             CONTRACTS       EXCOMMUNICATIONS

     BANISHMENTS        REJECTIONS      ALIENATIONS

     SYSTEMS            TECHNOLOGIES    WEAPONS

     Volunteers  need to recognize that such dysfunctional
patterns  exist  both inside and  outside  of  respectable
organizations,    churches,    institutions  and families.
Pretending that the dysfunctional patterns do not exist is
part of the pattern of their presence.

     To  be successful in getting new people to  volunteer
in healthy ways the new people must not feel that they are
being  tempted,   seduced  or  coerced  into   unbalanced,
unplanned,   unbudgeted  and/or unrestrained   giving   of
themselves  and/or  their resources. They must know how to
avoid being victimized by people who are skilled in taking
advantage of imprudently generous people.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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