All around us, we seem to hear, echo and speak of giving, sharing and showing kindness. It’s been proved severally that these are the best acts that can make the world a better place, and of course we can’t be wrong with the scientific and the spiritual laws of giving and receiving. There is no doubt that even the tiniest of such good gestures goes a long way. Naturally, it is believed that when you give out in kindness, you in turn receive kindness in multiple folds. However, giving and sharing love and goodness starts from you. You are supposed to look after yourself as much as you will look after other people. So it starts inwardly and is extended to other people. You can’t give love if you don’t have love within you and if you don’t love yourself how you could express love to other people. If you do not invest time, money and care in yourself how do you expect to reap and share from your inner qualities? And remember, it is what you make of yourself that you can share around.
I chatted to a friend about sharing love and goodness with other people without forgetting myself but she believed that was not selfless enough. So, I made an allusion of a situation where I was as hungry as someone else and I had simply a bowl of food; it will only be wise and realistic if I shared the bowl of food between us appropriately than give it all to the other person leaving my tummy empty and my whole body without strength, except if I wanted to create an `impression’ or awaits a reward from that action. Sharing the bowl of food between both of us would have left me with no sense of doing something great while I did what was necessary when needed and ideally, I would have forgotten I did anything at all.
What beats me is, often, when we give out we give for the wrong reasons which is why we don’t receive the kind of things we are supposed to receive when we give. We simply give that we may receive back directly from our actions. As I said earlier, the law of reciprocity is universal. When you give with pure hearts you receive from the purity and abundance of nature, but when you give specifically to gain in whatever form, yes, you may do, but you will only limit the source from which you can receive from the abundance of the universe. Showing love, kindness, concern and all these nice things with a reason only diffuses your purpose and intention for giving, it as a matter of fact becomes a determinant in you doing as much charity or acts of kindness as you can. A lot of people hold back on giving because they think they are not sure of getting the recognition, praise or appreciation they deserve, others think if they give from what they acquire through hard work, they are being unnecessarily generous or may lack in some ways. On the other hand, some people do nice things that they may gain authority, power or dominance over their recipients. All of these rewards may come but would have defeated the purpose for which any individual should be generous or kind. We should always give kindness and show goodness for no reason except that it’s pleasant to both of you.
For instance, when you render a service or an act of kindness for recognition and for some reasons you fail to receive the recognition and appreciation you require, it automatically affects your purpose of rendering the service in the first place and a multiplication effect is that you are likely to withdraw from doing such things because you fear for uncertain `paybacks’ you consciously expect.
A direct sale recruit once told me that as a strategy to sell, she made a duty of smiling to all her neighbours far and near. As time went by some people became regular customers some bought things occasionally and some neighbours couldn’t be bothered. Soon those who noticed her new attitude when she became more friendly, smiley and nice did not fail to notice it, when she maintained such stance only with neighbours who continued to patronise her and continued to be her normal self to others who couldn’t be bothered, and soon it all collapsed because more than ever, she’d exposed her personality problem.
Being nice to others shouldn’t be for a reward other than it makes both parties feel good, and giving as much as a smile could be as heavenly as life.
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