Giving is a selfish thing to do

I just wanted to drop you a line about giving for the sake of giving and what a selfish thing it is to do. Selfish you say? How can it be selfish to give for the sake of giving? with no thanks; with no acknowledgement; without anything in return? Let me explain…

A few years ago my friend’s son was deployed to Afghanistan to fight. As a mother of smaller children I could not have even begun to understand what that would have felt like, or how hard it was for her, or for any military family. What an amazing thing it is to live in a safe place because someone watches over me and my family as I sleep. I listened to her turmoil and her worry and I felt helpless. So, I decided to go into stealth mode…

Every week while he was on tour I would sneak past her house and drop a little something into her mailbox. (In Australia we have mailboxes at the end of our driveways). It would be something small and inexpensive; a smooth pebble with a word on it like love, hope, faith, blessings, caring, etc., or a card with an inspirational poem, or a beautiful picture with the message ‘thinking of you’, etc. Every time she would post an excited little status update on Facebook and she began to look forward to them. It was something so insignificant in the scheme of things but it gave her something else to focus on and brought a little bit of sunshine into a dark time.

She never knew who sent them and she never will. She referred to the giver as her ‘Earth Angel’ in her posts.

We have lost touch now over the years but I look back on that time with a smile. That’s why giving for giving sake is selfish, because it lights me up inside, it makes me feel worth something, it makes me feel connected and it fills me with a profound sense of joy.

Lots of love, from Cathy x