give more

A few months ago, I took a few sheets of blank paper, folded and stapled them together and created a new quarterly newspaper – The Goose Gazette. The intended readership was a grand total of 1 – my boyfriend:) It was the day before he was going into hospital for some tests and I wanted to cheer him up so I left it under his pillow. Now volume two is in progress and I hope it will make him smile as much as the first one:)

Nobody knows what tomorrow will bring, so if you want to tell someone how you feel about them, there’s no time like the present.. So I sent a nice text to my boyfriend this evening to say I was thinking of him and that I was glad to have him in my life :) His reply was equally as lovely:)

I think this is probably one of the main ways that you can give to someone else.. My poor boyfriend is sick at the moment so I put ‘operation cheerfulness’ into action by visiting him and bringing him supplies. He’s smiling now so it was worth it.

I think this is probably one of the main ways that you can give to someone else.. My poor boyfriend is sick at the moment so I put ‘operation cheerfulness’ into action by visiting him and bringing him supplies. He’s smiling now so it was worth it.

Today a friend was in touch and expressed their sadness that we had not been in touch for sometime, or that when I was in touch, it was often via a fleeting text message. I felt bad about this. It is mainly because I have started seeing someone new and this relationship has just consumed my life for the past few months because it is such a wonderful new world to me. G’s text really got me thinking. Time does seem to be an important thing to give others. I’ll have to work on this goal a bit harder over the coming months.

I brought back chocolate from the shop for my work colleagues today. It brought a smile to their faces:) But I have to remember that I can give non-material things too..

I know she loves chocolate because it has come up in our conversations before as she worked her magic on my hair. So today I will surprise her with some when I go in :)

My friend is going through a really tough time at the moment so I decided to search the itunes store for free podcasts on subjects that would be of interest to him, such as philosophy, classsical music and documentaries. I’ve put them onto my spare ipod and will give it to him this evening. I hope it will make a little difference to his days. He really needs some kindness right now.

Every Monday I bring Sunday’s paper with me to the tram. At this stage I have read its different sections and magazines and hoping they will be useful for someone else to break the monotony of their daily commute, I leave them on the seat:) There are times when I have got the tram with no paper or music or book and would love to find something like that so I hope that there is someone out there who has been pleased by this little thing:)

I’ve decided one simple way that I can give more is to reach out to people here on 43things, offering words of support and practical advice. I have been cheering up to this point, but I think taking the next step and actually writing something for others to read might be just as giving:)