Reckless Generosity: Turning the "Why?" Into "How?"
Whew. We made it. The end of the holiday push. Now comes the work of a new year, the excitement of new beginnings and promises to ourselves and others. Maybe. Or maybe it’s just another day, one that’s still pretty dark and cold. My favorite, favorite thing about building connection with other people is that it isn’t big and dramatic. It’s small choices, each and every day, that start to change us and change the people around us.
Small acts of self-sacrifice, chosen over and over, begin to change us. As we learn to make choices that push past our desires to achieve larger aims, it becomes more natural to ignore the limitations we thought we had. We start to think less in terms of “Why?” and more in terms of “How?” And that feeling leads us to reckless generosity – refusing to let our limits decide how much we give.
One of the first thing I noticed about Forrest was his lack of respect for limitations. Maybe it was because he grew up doing farm work or because he was a long-distance runner, but he intuitively knew that with hard work and willpower, there wasn’t much out of his reach. And I don’t mean big stuff like starting a company or running a marathon. I mean cool stuff, like rearranging the house in an afternoon or taking three kids under 5 on an all-day bus adventure.
It took me longer, but after surviving infant twins and a very difficult toddler, I’ve realized nothing will ever be as physically demanding as that. I love taking an hour to figure out, really, what are the barriers to doing this fun thing? I don’t want to make absolute pronouncements, but I was only able to get to that place after daily self-sacrifice – giving so much of myself that I realized how much I could do if only I got past my fears of not having or being enough.
If only the rest of our culture would agree. Our world is plagued by a scarcity mentality. Even the poorest of us have better medical care, sanitation, and educational access than the majority of humans throughout history. At the same time, all that we have never seems like enough, and there are entire global industries focused on making sure we continue to feel that everything falls short. I obviously still believe in the necessity of self-care and boundaries. Yes, there are limits to what we can give and do, but if that’s all we see, we’re proclaiming the impossible without even trying.
What would it be like for you to engage in reckless acts of generosity – not just of money, but time, kindness, and thoughtfulness? What would that look like, just for even a day or an hour? What could you achieve? What could we all achieve together?
