Giving

You often say, “I would give, but only to the deserving.”
The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.
They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.

– Kahlil Gibran

Philosophy is useless unless it is used. That statement is more for me than anyone else. The reason being is that five minutes before writing that sentence, I wrote something else that corresponded with the quote above. This whole post was going to be dedicated to the idea that we should do good simply because we know it is good, and that we should take ourselves out of it. But it was in that five-minute span that I noticed that the washing machine was done. I very easily could have, and should have, gotten up and moved the bed sheets into the dryer, but instead I waited for my wife to walk by and I mentioned this to her, and she went and made the transfer. I turned back to this document and I realized what I fraud I am. This isn’t the first instance of such a situation, far from it. All too often I, and I’m sure many others, instinctively see some way to help, but then talk ourselves out of it with some outrageous rationale. We tell ourselves, “If they wanted help they would ask for it, I don’t want to offend them.” or something along those lines (this wasn’t the case with the dryer, I was just being selfish). But in cases like that, it is not the person we’re actually thinking of, we’re thinking of ourselves. We try to shield ourselves from the odd chance that the person will lash out at us, thus damaging our ego, so we walk along as though nothing was out of the ordinary, telling ourselves that we did the right thing. It is that very notion that brings down our sense of community.

I do believe we all inherently know what is right and good and just, but our ego crushes these ideals with the perverse idea of self-preservation. But what good does it do the world to only help oneself? For as the quote above says, “to withhold is to perish.” The less we give, the less human we become, and this is evident in the number of cases of depression in the developed world. The sense of community and giving and loving one another unconditionally is lost amongst the network of technology and social media and self-obsession. To give is to be human. We are meant to share experiences with one another as part of a collective. That is how we were able to build these communities in the first place. We recognized a need for the group and took care of it, we communicated, and we celebrated together. But by shutting this off, we lose that feeling, that sense of humanness, which in the end is all we really want to have. But we can retrieve that feeling.

We don’t have to go and build a school or house for someone in need, it can start with something as small as picking up a piece of litter on the ground or putting the laundry in the dryer without anyone asking. Hold the door for a stranger. When you notice co-worker is down, lend an ear, and actually listen. Write someone a thank you card. All of these things are things we know we should do, and they take very little effort, so long as we get passed the idea of our ego, and let ourselves be human.

And so these words aren’t more theoretical garbage for the Internet, this week I am going to make a conscious effort to practice what I preach. To do so I am going to keep track of both the deeds that I do, and the deeds that I don’t do, but knew I could have, doing my best to keep the former list longer than the ladder, and reflecting on the deeds at the end of each day. I won’t share this list with anyone, because it is for me and me alone, because I know in my core as a human when I’m doing right, just as we all do. And perhaps there is a better way to go about this that doesn’t involve looking at all the good that I did, but giving, like anything else in life, requires practice. And the more I practice giving, the more naturally it will come, and if society as a whole benefits, then everyone wins.

“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit”

– Harry S. Truman

Resources: https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2017/02/kahlil-gibran-love/