December 14, 2018
"Write about giving and receiving"
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We have all heard about giving, we hear it from parents, from school teachers, from relatives, from television platforms, almost everywhere. If you search, you will come across hundreds of quotes from thousands of famous and not so famous personalities. I list a few random ones below:
"Giving is the master key to success, in all applications of human life." - Bryant McGill
"For it is in giving that we receive." - Francis of Assisi;
"To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with." - Mark Twain
"The wise man does not lay up his own treasures. The more he gives to others, the more he has for his own." - Lao Tzu
"No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another." - Charles Dickens
"Nothing else in all life is such a maker of joy and cheer as the privilege of doing good." - James Russell Miller;
"The best things to do with the best things in life is to give them away." - Dorothy Day
"We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give." - Winston S. Churchill
"When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed." - Maya Angelou
"Joy multiplies when it is shared among friends, but grief diminishes with every division. That is life." - R.A. Salvatore
"Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others." - Booker T. Washington
"Mankind was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business." - A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens;
"Remember that are not those getting more, but those giving more." ―H. Jackson Brown Jr."Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give." ―Eleanor Roosevelt
"We must give more in order to get more. It is the generous giving of ourselves that produces the generous harvest." ―Orison Swett Marden
"The meaning of life is to find your gift. is to give it away." ―Pablo Picasso
By now it is clear that is an all pervasive sentiment that giving is good, desirable and appreciable. I agree too. But I am not going to talk about giving, too much has been said and written about it. I want to talk about receiving.
If there is no one to received, what would you give? Have you ever thought about how someone who gives would feel if the receiver did not accept it in the right spirit?
Be honest, most of us, receive in different stages: unnecessary gratitude, false joy, hopelessness. And often, as we receive, we start thinking how we can give back, which destroys the joy of the whole thing. We are reminded of giving but learn to receive.
If giving is a gift then receiving is an art. And we have to learn that art, to simply received with grace and acceptance. To receive without thinking how to repay that which we receive, for then it is a barter. We do not think twice about the life we have been given, the sunlight with which we are blessed, the air we breathe, the world we live in. But when someone gives us something our mind goes on an overdrive; it is not what we think is appropriate; it puts a burden on us so we think up ways of giving a gift in return; we do not enjoy for we are not sure as to how simple acceptance would be perceived.
We should learn from children, see the joy they have when they receive something, they are happy with what you give them, a sweet, a toffee, a toy or a hug. They do not calculate what they have to give in return. We adults teach them to give and make them forget how to receive.
Which brings me back to the question - if everyone gives and no one receives, there is no joy. Let us learn to receive, with grace and acceptance, for today, now, is my turn to received. Tomorrow when I give I will hopefully give to someone who has also remembered the grace of receiving.
That is the true joy of giving and receiving- when you give freely and receive fully
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Word count 715 of pure quoting and preaching.