GreyShuck

In terms of geographic culture, I am British, or English or East Anglian, depending on who I am speaking to.

I don’t think that volunteering is necessarily considered to be a particular civic duty or anything in the UK, but it clearly is more common here than in some parts of the world.

I did not engage in any volunteering during my educational career - which was a long time ago now - but have a lot since: mostly in wildlife and conservation related roles, but a selection of others too. In fact I changed career and got my first paid position in conservation largely on the back of the volunteering that I had already done.

I then went on to lead volunteer teams for much of that career - which is where I came to realise that volunteering really wasn’t something that many incomers from non-European backgrounds were as familiar with or expected to engage with. Obviously socio-economic background is going to play a part here too, not just geography: in the UK, at least, folk with middle (and upper) class backgrounds are over-represented among volunteers, with working class backgrounds being less well represented, often for very clear financial reasons.

Typically a lie in, some gaming and a few chores in the morning, then some garden work (raking the meadow area today, after the annual cut a few days back), or DIY or errends or something in the afternoon, then film night.

You can abuse your body a hell of a lot up to that age without too many issues. Those issues will start hitting home within the next decade or so though. Make a change for the better while you can.

UK - local authorities are busy un-declaring climate emergency, nationally they are blaming the wildfires on re-wilding done by lefties and anyway, they say, it is no worse than the summer of '76.