Volunteer Website Designer
Move into a monastery or rent a room dirt cheap near by.  This is a small task they are looking for, but volunteers with specialized skills are continuously in high demand.

Wow, do you have other links like that? You can email me with the link under my avatar. I've looked before at a website about helping on organic farms around the world, but that's about all I found..

Do you think it's possible to volunteer like that around the world without interruption because if you interrupt your career you have no income   And you still have to pay for the flight there, which in itself is a big budget if you go to India, or Japan or Tibet and so on... hmmm I guess there must be some forums out there dedicated to volunteering.

Thanks!

@BabyRat  thanks, I heard about WWOOF and was tempted before.. but I thought I wouldn't do this repeatedly. If I volunteer outside of Europe, man I'm gone for 6 months at least

Lol you opened a big can of worms there

Cause I wanted to teach too .. and the best part... after my last Vipassana course I really wanted to do one in India. In fact there's probably one right there in Dharamsala.

If you know good forums where I can get info for volunteering can you send it to me via the contact page (or my email here)? Thanks!!

When you come back from it you feel so energized and up for anything! Maybe even doing Revtek!

In fact I'm just realizing.. especially if I help with computer related tasks I must have access to internet anyway. Maybe not as often as I'd like, but I might be able to keep maintaining the Open source project, only with a lot more energy than I have now.

I'll post more on that in the sitenews when things start moving..

The only other computer related volunteer work I know of is with Tibethouse Japan but it requires that you be fluent in Japanese.
Like Ice Cream said, most organized volunteer sites require that you actually pay to volunteer.  It is often best to talk to the charity directors directly and explain you are looking for something long-term.

Even when less than 3000 you are really rich, in the worse case you will have 1500 euros to expend in 6 months -> 250 euros/month . More than enough.

BTW, please everyone, post publicly any interesting link or personal experience, I'm interested also. My current job ends in October and have no idea of what to do next.

Lots of English teaching volunteering. Someone knows of any other teaching field apart from English?

Last edited by trusmis (2010 February 12, 12:06 pm)

Because you have a technical skill and want to volunteer long term, you can most likely find a situation that gives you room, board and even a small stipend for toiletries and such.

Having volunteered unofficially for both Catholic and Buddhist projects most of my life, I understand why an organization would want to charge a fee for the privilege of volunteering.  A majority of candidates don't have a very strong work ethic and can be more of a drain on time and resources.  Unfortunately this seems to be especially true with Buddhist volunteers for some reason.  Though I have never met a corrupt Buddhist charity and have run across a few Catholic organizations that seem to enrich the organizers more than the intended recipients of donations.

Last edited by bodhisamaya (2010 February 12, 6:04 pm)

Ah, I just looked it up.  Ten year visas are only available to US citizens due to a bilateral arrangement.  Though I have known of others who have stayed years so I am assuming it is like Thailand where you just have to cross the border and come back every time the visa expires.

Re your original post: I'm sorry to hear that!

I like my self-management pretty lean (just a smart list and a calendar, both electronic), and it helps keep my mind clear, but you've presumably thought about and experimented with these things a lot already anyway.

So I guess my tip would be to check out some pop-scientific books about happiness -- there's plenty of scientific results around the topic, and I think most people will find new insights (I certainly did).  I liked Klein's "The Science of Happiness" and Gilbert's "Stumbling on Happiness".  (As an atheist, striving to understand happiness is what I call spirituality, or at least an important part of it, if that makes any sense.)

Edit: On the topic of "keeping your mind clear", you might check out the book "Getting Things Done" if you haven't done so already.  Much of its methods are overblown for me (since I'm not a 40-year old CEO with kids), but its insights are quite valuable.

Last edited by epsilondelta (2010 February 13, 9:12 pm)

Babyrat wrote:

If you decide to do it I can drop a name of a place that im sure you would love, in a rural area run by a grumpy but great to rip the piss out of young man!

I sent you an email!

Yeah it was a kind of joke. So I see the hippies are well and alive

Thanks nestOr. I'm not planning to go on vacation. What I realised is that I'm stagnating in my life and need new experiences to grow.

I don't think going on vacation, the old fashioned way ("sea sex and sun") will have any long term benefits, neither will changing jobs. Regarding my job, I love hacking away at javascript and there's tons of it right now. All in all I wouldn't say I'm truly at peace and content with the way my life is going, but I'm not unhappy either (I guess that applies to a lot of people ). Most people in my situation I think would say they feel good and fairly happy. Because I'm a little introspective (perhaps too much at times), I tend to reflect more negatively on it. I spend enough years of my life running from one distraction to another that I know I won't fool myself too long anymore

I just realised I'm stagnating in my life spiritually. I want to connect more with people and do something more meaningful with my skills.

So sure, going on vacation isn't an answer. But going on a volunteer trip is an experience that can help me grow at a deeper level.

I read some more Eckhart Tolle yesterday (his second book) and there were very interesting quotes in there. In particular he was explaining how positive change doesn't arise out of dissatisfaction. A timely reflection. It made me realise I do have some dissatisfaction with my job, mostly that I build websites that have no meaning to me (tobacco, pharmaceuticals for $$$, soft drinks, ..). Thankfully we're on a cool project now that is to last for many more months, but each time I had to work on "meaningless" material (from my pt of view), my mood were just roller coaster.

So I guess another definition of happiness would be to go with the flow.. some say "to be who you are". That's way too abstract a quote to be helpful for a lot of people imho. A less abstract definition may be "to be congruous with your beliefs/deeper motivations".

So in that sense, especially if I can continue to use my web design/coding skills I am not trying to change everything, or to run away from my current life. I'm looking for new experiences, and continue to work but use my skills in more meaningful ways. Then I may as well do this abroad. In fact since I work 4 days a week I'll end up working more

Volunteering in Asia, or for other organizations around the world can be a way to make more meaningful use of my skills. It is also an opportunity for deeper change because of connecting with more people, different mindsets, and especially getting outside of one's "box" for a little while. After that I guess it's down to each person to make it what they want to make of it. As bodhisamaya pointed out, it seems Dharamsala (to take one example) is a popular trip for "hippies". But people go there also to volunteer and do meaningful work. I don't think the Tibetans themselves spend the day smoking pot   So each person's journey is different..

And thanks again, these posts helped me precise my "feelings" for lack of better word. Though one big danger is to reason myself out of it. I have done this in the past many times. Reasoning just comes out of fear. I won't fall into the trap this time.

I got a reply from VolunteerTibet with a .doc file. Probably a more detailed application form.. I'll have to install OpenOffice to read it   Even if this doesn't succeed, I've got more ideas.

The best opportunity for me right now is to use my web coding skills. I could also teach english and so on, but it would feel more like an escape (perhaps in the sense that nestOr pointed out). Whereas to use my web development skills I feel like I'm not escaping but going on a tangent with mor opportunity for personal growth (rather than career expectations).