Selfless Giving
Are you a giver?
I have been reading the book, Give and Take, by Adam Grant. He talks about givers, takers, and matchers, three personality types based on how people approach transactions between them.
Matchers will help you out if they see an immediate or future reciprocal benefit. Takers will seek to gain in all transactions, but it is the Giver I want to focus on.
We have a mental image of a giver as someone who does things out of love, a nice guy who often finishes last. Grant calls that type a Selfless Giver.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. - 1 Corinthians 13:4-6
Today's epistle is often heard at weddings, since it focuses on love, but it applies to all forms of interaction between and among people.
When we do things out of love, our energy level increases, even when we take on more and more work. The reason for that is we are doing what makes us happy, so even though we are giving, we benefit from the experience and recharge our batteries.
Grant calls this Otherish Giving, giving to others with a vested interest in why we are doing it; it makes us stronger, happier, and we feel fulfilled.
The Otherish Giver knows how and when to say "No" to the request for help or a favor. He can see through those who are looking to take advantage and finds a way to protect himself from loss or pain.
It is giving without guilt.
It's not the same as the Matcher's approach, though, where I only give to those who can help me now or later. I give with a sincere desire to help others, but I don't drain all my energy on them.
Jesus taught us to counter the drive for power with the drive for giving, being in and of service to our neighbors. He also taught us to love our enemies and seek to reconcile with those we hurt.
We tend to think of him as selfless, but we may be wrong in that. He took himself out of situations where he was being drained of energy and power. He told his disciples to move on when they were rejected. His renewable resource of energy was Love, and it is available to us as well.
There are people who will seek to take advantage of our loving nature. But we have an advocate in the Holy Spirit who can guide us.
Our charge is to love each other, and we can do that, offering our help and giving from the heart. But if we don;t take care of ourselves in the process, we will become depleted and burn out. Ironically, as Grant tells us, taking on other forms of giving may build us up so we can deal with the drain.
More to come...