Giving on Empty?
(Giving on Empty?)
If you reached into your pocket and found you had no money, how much could you give? If you wanted to feed a friend but you had no food in the house, how much could you give? The answers seem so easy and self evident but let me ask you one more. If you really wanted to give happiness to those you love, how much could you give? Are you full of happiness?
How do you give someone else happiness? It’s not like handing them a handful of pistachios or a cookie. Sometimes we think that giving a gift is giving happiness but believe it or not (sorry Tiffany&Co!) it’s more about the person who is giving and the reason for the giving than the gift itself.
You see, we can give happiness but we have to have it to give it. When you buy a gift for someone you love, you get very happy at the thought of giving it and the pleasure and joy you’ll see. And that happiness that you feel gets delivered with the gift.
When we are stressed and feeling low, we give up on our own happiness and instead we try to do something nice or give a gift to make someone else happy but most of the time it fizzles or backfires because we are not happy. We can’t give on empty! We can’t give what we don’t have.
When we fill ourselves with gratitude for our many blessings, when we smile at the beauty around us, when we remember those who love us, when we remember others who were happy, we fill ourselves with happiness. When we are filled with happiness, everything we say is uplifting, every gift no matter how small is received with joy, every smile we give is returned.
If we want to give happiness to the ones we love, to this world of ours, it is our duty to be happy. It is our calling to be a light and not a shroud. It is our charge to rise above the petty. Those we love want us to be happy just like we want them to be happy. Where’s that smile?
(c)2013 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
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