If we are not to live with our fellow men, with whom can we live?
– Confucius
It is only in the giving that we receive. If you want happiness, give happiness. If you want wealth, give wealth. If you want love, give love.
Giving enriches your life with meaning, fulfillment, and happiness. It allows you to unleash your potential and create breakthroughs. In fact, it is a privilege to give.
You contribute not just by what you do but also by who you are. “With our words we can only preach,” said St. Francis of Assisi. “In the end, it is our actions that teach.” If you have sound character and display honesty, integrity, humility, and discipline, you contribute to others by your own example. Who you are and why and how you do things are just as important as what you do. Thus, by aligning your actions with your words, you become a person of influence and significance.
Each of us is endowed with enormous gifts; most of us only scratch the surface of these gifts during our entire lifetimes. Infact many live and die leaving a huge portion of their potential untapped. They fail to find worthwhile causes that are really meaningful to them and that could make a great difference in their lives.
But when we give to others, or give of ourselves to meaningful causes, things change. We expect more of ourselves. We ignite our untapped potential and benefit not only ourselves, but others as well. We discover new feelings of self-worth.
There are innumerable instances of people allowing abundance to flow through them, in myriad ways.
In July 2013, an unidentified man walked into an Edmonton Tim Hortons and ordered a large coffee. He then paid for that coffee along with the next 500 large coffees bought at the location.
When Delaney ‘Laney’ Brown was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia and, doctors said she had only weeks to live, one of her final wishes was to hear Christmas carolers. Her family turned to Facebook for support and a ‘Christmas Caroling for Laney’ event was organized for Saturday night. Thousands of people showed up, far exceeding West Reading’s population of 4,000, and sang ‘Jingle Bells’, ‘Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer’ and ‘Joy to the World’. The Team Laney Facebook page posted a picture of Delaney giving two thumbs up. The caption said: “I can hear you now!!! Love you!”
The benefits of giving run both ways. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the 19th-century American philosopher-poet said, “It is one of the beautiful compensations of this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.”
The more you help others, the more you help yourself. The more you give, the more you have, the more you find, and the more you receive. A river stagnates if it stops flowing.
So keep the flow going. When the flow stops, receiving stops. Ask yourself: Are you in the flow? Do you live as a conduit receiving with one hand from your Creator and giving with another, thus increasing the flow through you?
So this coming Christmas, give of your time, your knowledge, your wisdom, your wealth, your love, and yourself, and experience the power of giving.
(Excerpts from the book, ‘Life Balance, The Sufi Way’ by Azim Jamal & Nido Quebin