Give more than I take

I am a firm believer in karma, or something very close at least. While I cannot subscribe fully to the Hindu laws of dharma, I still feel that there is a sort of cosmic scale that needs to be kept in balance.

It seems that those that take more than they give do well in the short run, but the imbalance they create seems to drag them down in the end. Altruism seems to pay off more in the end, especially if one is not concerned with the gains from their generosity.

If more people strove to leave things better than they found them the world would become a much better place.

I think the idea of this goal is also expressed in my “chnage the world 20 mins at a time” goal. Only that one is measurable and has an emphasis on actual action rather than vaguish commitments to weight things that I can’t, in all honesty, weigh up. So I’m off to concentrate on that one instead.

on a darkening Wednesday afternoon.

How have I been doing on this goal?

The good I have been paying far greater attention to my friendships and sending out handwritten letters/ cards for no occasion other than to celebrate that friendship. I have been meeting up for knitting sessions even when it is inconvenient for me, and trying to help E settle into her new life in Japan.
I have been making a bigger effort to be cheerier at work.
I have been doing my best to help a friedn in mourning by sending over amusing things I find in shops over here (the last parcel contained slippers with in-built mops).
I have been less selfish in bed ;)
Lots and lots of overtime to help the kids prep for exams.
I have baking like Delia on amphetamines in order to dole out cakes to the neighbours.

The bad
I realised, having given a cake (carrot, lemon glaze) that I had completely mis-measured the baking soda and that it probably tasted like rancid pigeon faeces as a result. But it is the thought that counts, right?
I have snapped at D a few times over things that were completely out of his control.
I have been prioritising D (male) over D (female) when I know D (female) is going through a hard time emotionally and needs support.
I haven’t made any new kiva payments since the initial three went out two months ago.

The ugly
I have been increasingly annoyed at A lately due to her continued attempts to sabotage D (male) and I. Even though I KNOW it is because she herself broke off a relationship a few months ago and feels aggrieved that we are not all suffering along with her; even though I feel completely unthreatened by her actions because I find the thought that D would do anything with her laughable (thus revealing the disdain in which I hold her).
I have been finding her immature, competitive and very selfish and, instead of confronting this issue I have simply been trying to see less and less of her and hoping it will go away by itself.
I feel nothing but contempt for the new man she has started a fling with, and find myself incapable of thinking that she might actually be in that relationship because it makes her happy. Instead I find myself convinced that she is doing it out of a childish desire for attention, not from the man in question himself, but from an enthralled audiance as she regales us with tales of her manly exploits.
I am uncomfortable looking her in the eye, knowing all these ugly thoughts are brimming beneath the surface, and instead of giving her the attention she obviously feels she needs, I resent her obvious attempts to fish it out of me and consequently give as little as I possibly can.
She is coming away with us this weekend and frankly, I’d really rather she didn’t.
This is not a very giving way to lead a friendship.
To be perfectly blunt, I woke up one day recently and realised I simply didn’t like her very much. I feel that, since I can’t simply zap her out of my life, due to our large amount of mutual friends, I should at least accept that I dislike her and then move into seeing her position in as sympathetic a light as I can do. I manage to do this with planty of other people I dislike,in order to keep the peace. But somehow I seem unable to do it with her.
I think it is down to her constant competitiveness, which in turn draws out a competitive streak in myself that I don’t like very much. If I could just get past that, and stop myself from rising to her baits, then I might be able to see her need to be the best in everybody’s eyes as saddening rather than irksome. But I don’t know how to stop myself biting. And I can’t seem to rid myself of the impression that she is irksome and that it isn’t up to me to pretend that she is not.

Sigh. Must work harder!!

At 17:6.

1. “Sort my photos” might seem an odd goal to list as give, but the truth is I am perfectly happy with my photos as they are on my laptop, all filed and labelled up, if in somewhat excessive amounts.

The sorting refers to sifting through the thousands of shots and uploading selected samples (trying to impose upper limit of 40 per album to prevent bankrupcy through storage charges) online.

My granddad had a stroke a few years back and is now wheelchair bound and can’t use his left arm (bit of a bugger when you’re a leftie). He loves photography and taught my mum, and then me, how to develop, before embracing whole heartedly (personally, I still have reservations) the digital revolution. I know he gets bored stuck in the house most of the day, but he loves to play around with things on his computer, especially photos.

And here I am, his loving granddaughter, away in Japan taking lots of (I think) interesting shots. I write to him as often as I can, and sometimes send CDs of photos, but I thought it would be nice if there was a place where all (read: some) of my photos were gathered together so he could peruse and download them at his leisure. He’s quite the computer whizz, much better than I ever aspire to be, and having them online will be much easier for him physically than having to faff about with a CD that he probably can’t open when he’s alone in the house.

SO. Aiming to have them up and running (on picasa, because the tagging on flickr confuses me too much and I like a good old fashioned “album”) by the end of the week.

2. It’s not listed as a goal because I had the idea and then just went out and did it, but I’ve also started teaching English to the special needs kids at junior high when I have a free period. Used basketball (as if I understand the rules of basketball!) to practice counting with M, which was a lot of fun, and tomorrow I’m doing the alphabet with K. A very small gift, because, being realistic, I doubt they’ll ever use it, but they seemed to enjoy it and it makes a nice change for them, I think.

3. Sending gift hamper to Marj, who looks after my granddad. [Muted] hurrah for the internet.

Just finished tagging all of my goals with either “give” or “take”. Alot of them were quite tricky to decide, because I found myself arguing that through improving myself, I would be in a better position to give more to other people…
In the end I decided that only instances of DIRECT giving would count as gives, otherwise I’d end up convincing myself that I was a lot more giving than is actually the case.

Looking at my list, “take” has a whopping 18 goals, and “give” a mere 5.

That’s a sobering thought, though I suppose I could have predicted as much.

New objective for this goal:
keep ratio of “take” : “give” at no higher than 3:1

Once I’ve cycled to sounkyo tomorrow (I will do it, you know!) that’ll be a “take” off the list and I’ll be within my ratio.
Of course, there’s nothing to stop me from adding more “take” goals when I feel like it, as long as I add an extra “give” goal as well. Hopefully this will keep me aware of this general goal, and prevent it from just festering at the bottom of the list, as I find to be too frequently the case with some of my well-intentioned goals.

, which they reciprocated with cucumbers, I came home yesterday to find that they had cut my lawn for me and got rid of all the dandelions. Needless to say I hastened out to buy them a big “gift” box of assorted delights, and I’m hoping this will be the end of it! Sometimes I feel that living in Japan is one long cycle of gift giving – a gift to thank the giver, a gift to thank the giver of the gift to thank the giver, and so on and so forth into bankrupcy.
But I suppose there are probably worse aspects to society than relentless generosity.

With this goal in mind, I have also decided to be lamer than a lame horse eating lame supplements before the lame horse racing world championships, in Lamesville, Tennessee, and write a list of people who have helped me throughout my life. Teachers, old employers, random strangers who inspired me to move closer to where I am now, health clinic nurses, staff at the scholarship scheme which essentially put me through uni, the man who let me have a discounted price for storage when he found out I was moving to Japan, because his daughter once had a penfriend there…
All those who make it onto the list and whom I have some way of contacting, or contacting other people who might know where to find them, will soon be receiving a thank you letter on the nicest cards I can hunt down in Asahikawa tomorrow (three day weekend, hurrah!), and a packet of my favourite Japanese green tea.
Not much, and I’m sure some of them probably don’t even remember who I am, but I remember them even if, in most cases, I forgot to thank them properly at the time.

I know that being a giver is about more than simply buying people presents, and I’m working on that too, but this seems a simple way to try and at least acknowledge to people that I took from them, and I am grateful for all they gave.
Onwards to giving!

to add this to my list thanks to Dave and his Davist manifesto.

Ultimately, when I sit back and look at the big picture of my life, this is how I want to live it.

I started by taking round some cookies I’d baked to the neighbours. Of course, they immediately reciprocated by coming round with a huge basket of homegrown cucumbers (I love cucumbers, and let’s try to keep the phallic jokes to a bare minimum shall we?) and some grapefruits. So, it seems I’m already in deficit.

Next, I tried donating to the 100 dollar laptop, of one laptop one child fame. I wanted to give 100 dollars, or the equivalent of, to help provide someone with a solitary laptop. Education has a pivotal role to play in improving living standards throughout the world. Knowledge is everything I thrive on. It’s a huge gift, and pursuit of it defines both me and the life I choose to be leading. As Dave puts it so well (in his manifesto, duh – didn’t you click on the link yet?), everyone should have the right to access the store of human knowledge, and the right to be able to contribute to that store. I was also, once I got over my initial disbelief (ever the cynic), gratified to see a project which aimed to use the developed world’s technology to try and bridge the gap between “us” and “them”, rather than monopolising it for profit, often enflaming local conflicts in the process (witness the role of Coltan in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s war). I just thought, you know, it would be nice to give them some of my not particularly hard won money. Unfortunately, I can’t get the donation to go through, because google keeps popping up and insisting that I change the address. One laptop one child doesn’t deliver to Japan, they chastise me. Well, no, of course not. I don’t want them to send me a laptop; I want to give them some money so they can send one to a school that does need one. Anyone managed to donate on-line? Or am I just a dunce. I expect I am. It usually turns out to be the case. Let me know, would you? Cheers.

but i feel i’ve got a good hold of it now.
Let’s face it – giving just feels good!
I give my bf little presents (books, compilation cds i’ve made or interviews off the radio i’ve burnt, sweet notes in his lunchbox, the other day i turned up at his lab with moisturising cream because i knew his hands were all dry and starting to bleed…) and gestures, just to let him know i;m thinking of him.
I’ve been involved in numerous volunteer projects at uni over the past 2 years – mentoring first-years, running career days for high school kids visiting the uni and this year i’ll be tutoring disavantaged kids after school, and working half a day every week at a school for hearing impaired children.
I need to give more to my little sister. We’re not real close cuz she’s so much younger than me (although that gap is slowly closing) but she’s just started high school and i can tell already the next little while is going to be tough for her. But i’m feeling really positive about this goal – i’ve made plenty of progress and i’m learning about the virtues of giving all the time. I’ll keep on it, but it’s time to tick it off because i’ve finally gotten over my fear and pride and whatever else was in the way hindering me from getting out there and giving in the first place.

When I give I get so much in return that it almost feels self indulgent if that’s possible! Sometimes I feel almost ashamed for feeling good about myself, proud, after giving someone my time and support. As if feeling pride is something to be ashamed of, where do these ideas come from anyway?

Sometimes when we open ourselves up to recieving from others we reward them in return with the gift of giving.

because it makes me feel good….