When was I last generous towards anything?
Myself – giving me the time to honour myself.
Others – Listening, helping assisting
Community – made contribution in your own way
Environment – gave something back to the environment by way of thanks for all provided.
I was taught a lesson not long ago that stays with me always.
In Thailand where, what I earnt in a day, represented maybe three months’ salary for the locals. My wife and I eating with the locals in a community market goofing around having fun with the food, eating hot chilli’s etc., enjoying being together at the large table.
Before I could stop him, a local lad got up and paid for both our meals.
His way of saying thanks I suppose for the laughs taken across huge language barriers, at the dinner table, that night. Where husbands and wives just enjoyed each other’s company, without care for politics and law or nation.
How humbling for me, to not be able to stop this chap, who income was at best a pittance compared to mine. How generous of him to act out on how he felt in the moment. Something about the spirit of how we live when we choose ourselves to act.
This example contains money, which sadly, can limit our thinking about being a generous person. Strong message and lesson: yes. But to think of generosity purely from a monetary stance, destroys the richness contained.
For when considered the ways in which we can be generous towards ourselves, each other and this place called home, money is so limiting.
Can you remember someone being generous towards you? How that felt and made you feel. Why isn’t that a feeling to be enjoyed each week or day?
Can you remember the last time you were generous towards yourself? The Space just to be you perhaps. That hike or swim just because you could. That silent space taken to be recreated in the moment. Drinking that sunset in.
The opportunities to be generous to others overwhelm, if time taken to pause and consider.
A smile, that spark of hello in the eyes, if choice made deliberate to do so.
Holding a door open, letting someone else jump a queue because you can.
Giving a compliment.
Giving your time to listen.
Sharing of experience, not to hold over, but to build up and construct.
To hold a hand.
Splitting a meal with a friend.
Reaching out to make new friends.
Acknowledging those around you in a nice way.
Deciding to be vulnerable open when need provides opportunity.
Fashionable in today’s world maybe not. For it seems programmed not to take risk we are.
But here is the kicker, so please read it slow
‘‘How did you feel the last time someone was generous towards you”?
When you now, like me, have memory that stands above the rest.
Why can’t you now create that memory, for others around you?
27.10.2016
