When you give, give simply. Don’t give anything expecting to get
something back. It is in giving selflessly that you experience inner peace.
There’s a story I remember. There was a blind
girl who hated herself because she was blind. She hated everyone, except her
loving boyfriend, who was always there for her. She said that if she could only
see the world, she would marry her boyfriend. One day, someone donated a pair
of eyes to her. She could see everything and everyone, including her boyfriend.
Her boyfriend proposed to her, “Now that you
can see the world, will you marry me?”
The girl was shocked when she saw that her
boyfriend was blind and so refused to marry him. Her boyfriend walked away without
protest and later wrote a letter to her saying – “Just take care of my eyes
dear.”
Shel Silverstein (1930~1999), the famous
American poet and author of children’s books, wrote his most famous book, “The
Giving Tree” in 1964. He teaches children the value of giving selflessly
through that story. He says, “True giving is when you simply want to give –
even when you don’t have to give and when you don’t need to give.”
A lot of our world is centered around what we
can get. “What’s in it for me?”, “Don’t I deserve more?”, seem to be questions
that arise in us ahead of “What can I give?” or “How can I serve?”. If we can
take a cue from Silverstein’s logic or from the selfless boyfriend in the story
I shared, and give selflessly, you and I can make the world a better place. None
of what we hold on to dearly, least of all our material assets, is something
that’s more valuable in our hands than in the hands of those that need it more
than us. So, give freely when you can even when you don’t
necessarily need to! What you give can change someone’s Life. And when you
give, the very act can make your own Life meaningful!
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