Giving the Joy of Giving

The English student in me is an insomniac; he never sleeps. The more I try to know and think, the more I understand my limitations. By the time I get clarity on one confusion, another confusion queues up itself. I enjoy my limitations and confusions. Thank god I don’t know everything. Perhaps that’s the best way to learn.

Here are some words: get, take, grab, earn, snatch, and so on. Although these words indicate the same results, they differ in how they happen: whether they happen with love, through force, with dignity, with rudeness or out of sympathy. Similarly, there are their counterparts: give, donate, throw etcetera.

Which of these actions make you happy?

There were days in my childhood when the greatest reward and the most affordable luxury I could get was going with my father and having a masala dosa (a South Indian dish) at Gayatri Bhavan, one of the decent hotels in the town. Sometimes when I scored good marks in the tests, sometimes when I was sad or upset, sometimes when my father would sense that I was reluctant to eat what was cooked at home, and sometimes for no reason, my father would take me to Gayathri Bhavan, order a masala dosa and sit in front me, enjoying seeing me eating it bite by bite. Though I hadn’t asked anytime, I always wondered, why would my father not order one for himself too? I now realize that he was getting the ‘joy of giving’, just giving.

I have sensed the same with my mother. She never feels hungry when there’s only little food left at night. Like anger, giving and sacrifice are the other beautiful ways of expressing your love.

Some people grow beyond their role in our life. A sister takes the role of the father and strives to set right her brother’s life, a friend stands like a brother in the toughest times of life, a boss becomes a sister and guides and helps in every walk – Why do they do all this? Is it a way of expressing their gratitude to us? Do they expect us to return it later? No way. Giving gives them happiness. It’s absolutely stupid to ask why they do all these. It’s sheer love, nothing else.

They don’t have to be very big. The bill paid at a hotel for one-by-two cup of coffee two friends have, the favourite food that someone who loves you brings for you, some money kept in your pocket by your brother when you’re travelling to a different place, the favourite chocolate that you give to your little girl irrespective of how old she is to the world, a pen gifted by your students spending the pocket money their parents had given them, some sweets brought by a sister feeling that her brother is still a small boy although he’s grown up and can get and afford that easily – the list goes on. These are just the acts of expressing love. Just give them the joy of giving.

Although it is rude to reject gifts, sometimes it hurts to know that it costs them a lot to ‘give’ something to us. Sometimes, in the process of making us happy, they may spend months of their earning and days of their sacrifice. Hence it is important to be a sensible giver. How can we think that someone who loves us can receive anything happily if we have to suffer or sacrifice to give them something! When there’s love, it doesn’t matter how big or how costly our gift is.

Sometimes giving may give joy to the giver, but it will be a pain to receive. A father who wants his son to study some course may have the best intention of ‘giving a great career’ to his son. A mother who wants her daughter to get married to her relative may be thinking that she’s ‘giving the happiest life’ to her daughter, but again, in the rush to give the best to their children, they forget to think if that makes their children happy. Joy in giving should create joy in receiving too.

On the other hand, we snatch the happiness of loved ones from the joy of giving for our own silly reasons. I have seen some people setting a principle for themselves: I don’t give or receive gifts. Love is abstract; but not the ways of expressing it. There’s no cardiogram invented so far that can convey how much your heart love someone. It’s done most of the times by ‘giving’ and ‘receiving’. For some people, their ego stops them from receiving from others. Ego and love never mix. Some people refuse to receive just because it’s a burden for others to give. Well, refusing doesn’t serve anything except hurting them. Isn’t it sensible to explain that you would be happier to receive small things than to receive such costlier ones beyond their affordability? Sometimes we stop our children from receiving from others in the name of manners, including receiving from their grandparents. Let’s not snatch such happiness of giving.

On the lighter note, there are some other people who DEMAND your GIVING: Wish them Happy birthday and Happy Wedding Anniversary.