What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.
How Can You See Without Seeing?

Many people do.
Yesterday I watched an interview of one very sweet lady who was elected two years ago as miss Bulgaria. She arrowed one very familiar to me topic. She mantioned many contestants, wealthy people, businessmen who usually donate or are involved in voluntary work to be able to have some tax reliefs or to reassure their conscience or even to “demonstrate” their goodness in the society helping the less fortunate.
(young miss Paris at he age of 13 doing some voluntary work at Gavroche children’s home)
I was honestly puzzled by her thoughts but not surprised. As you know I try to be beneficial for the less fortunate as long as I remember myself (I started at the age of 13, currently 26) to realise our need to be united society and our well thought out help and involvment in some voluntary activities.

As I ‘ve written before my work stayed hidden for many years because I was not even thinking about letting someone know apart of my family and close ones. Four years ago my beloved ones convinced me to write about my work so I can be useful to bring awareness and even to be a kind of inspiration for the others so they could involve themselves in a similar activities. I started publishing many articles about my teaching experience and voluntary ones around the globe. I was pretty skeptical about how “useful” I can be or how “inspirational” but many people appriciated and felt really involved and I started receiving like 30 e-mails per day from people from every part of the world (literally) being interested in my story and letting me know about their personal experience, or most often asking me how they can do the same I did. I remember I thought it will be a one-day wonder but then my e-mail was “sucked” by incredible amount of messages daily and the interest about my blog and my work was growing. People wanted to know more in details and how they can help in their own communities. Then many “sponsors” contacted me, having different kind of businesses, telling me that they like my work and my stories I share in the blog so they would love to hear from me where they can put their own money or sources wisely. (*Here I can underline «wisely» and surely will talk about this in my next articles because I strongly believe that it’s very important that apart of your personal support for the less fortunate that you actually think how to maximise the benefits for both parts and you yourself or someone you trust do voluntary work really focalised by quality not quantity and about what’s better in the long term not just today. ) They trusted my opinion.

For example there was an owner of a publishing house for children’s books who was asking me where he can donate the books that don’t sell and to choose families or associations I trust. Or there was an oil company which was able to provide sunflower oil and they were asking me where near the company headquarters they can find maybe a retirement home for the elderly to donate a part of their production. Or many private families which had furniture or clothes or other stuff in excess and they wanted to know an institution (non corrupted one because unfortunately some of the voluntary ones have this problem with the people working inside) that I personally trust so they can donate. Many young people wanted to know how they can go and do some voluntary work abroad like I did (without costing them a fortune) etc. etc.

Finally toghether with the good feedback came also the negative one. And that was also inspiring because I was able to understand people following my work and some real life views. Three opinions, one anonymous and the other two from a girl and a boy from my country expressed their views that they don’t see my work and stories in the same positive way. I believe that we live in a free speech society (althought in my work as a journalist I often see that this is not unfotunately true all of the times) and for me is very important that every person has his opinion (even negative) rather than not having one. In my opinion the «critics» I received were important (no matter in my case they wrote to me in a very immature way writing under my personal post and photos on my private Facebook and Instagram not my website which is created especially for opinions and feedback). According to the negative feedback I do voluntary work and write and publish photos about it mainly to “demonstrate” something that I am not. That my work and life style (having the incredible blessing to be able to travel with my family and my loved ones (a part of my voluntary work) and visiting high-priced places or being able to afford some particular clothing ecc. )does not correspond one to another. Long story short they believed I am a “hypocrite” because I do voluntary work just to show what I am not (good and compassionate person with the will to help less fortunate ones or to bring a positive change in our society).

I am writing for the first time about this but when I saw the interview with the young miss Bulgaria talking and sharing similar opinions about other people that do some voluntary work and according to her many do it just to have profit (moral, material ecc.) out of that, couldn’t remind me not that there were these three people talking about me that I am a similar kind of person with no moral values.

To be clear I am not going to defend myself because I really think that we live in a free speech world and I am a completely rational person and understand that together with hundreds of positive opinions there will be these (at least)  three negative ones about my work or personna. As I am blessed to be able to organize, participate and live many voluntary causes for the past 13 years and to be around some of the greatest people  I have ever met in my life during these experiences. I cannot be anything but grateful and with full understanding who I am and what I am able to provide for the others. And I think often actions speak clearly rather than words.
The problem stays in some point that is much more important and deep, in my point of view. What the young miss was discussing in the interview and the three people “criticizing” my work were thinking about my life style and choices is not a problem at all, according to me the real problem lies elsewhere. That’s why I think this and the next article are very important about the way voluntary work works and how we can be more efficient and useful without being confused by some opinions.

To be continued….

Read next Monday the 2nd part of the article

Love

Paris