WritingFromLife - you're absolutely right. Volunteering is a good way of removing yourself from nonsense and surrounding yourself with people who are actually doing things for others without an agenda. After the aforementioned "friend revolution", I devoted my time to raising money for cancer research before volunteering in a children's home in India. It certainly set my thinking and priorities in life straight. There's little meaning in trying to help those who continue to create silly problems for themselves, and great meaning in trying to help those who have real problems simply as a byproduct of being born.