Be Generous

For some reason when we talk about someone being generous we tend to imply that they’re willing to give or share material things such as money or possessions. That’s certainly a laudible attitude, but not all of us have enough to share, and not everyone needs to share with us. But we do have other things we can be magnanimous with.

How about your time? Are you generous with that? If someone asks you to come to a meeting, or spare them a couple of hours, or give them a ride to collect their car from the mechanic, are you always ready to say yes? Or would you prefer to get lost in a good book, or finish the project you’re working on, or just put your feet up at the end of the day with your favorite TV program? Let me tell you; you’ll actually get far more out of helping out—maybe not every time, but certainly on average—because you’ll be stepping out of your routine and anything could happen, from an interesting conversation to a huge adventure. That’s the thing—you never know what will happen next, especially when you do something different, however mundane it might seem.

Here’s something else you can be generous with: knowledge. You must know something that not everyone else does. Surely you could run a session on stop-frame animation at the local youth club, or get a couple of local kids started playing the guitar, or show some of your junior colleagues how to make their PowerPoint presentation stand out, or give a talk about your specialist subject to a local group. You never know, you might even enjoy yourself.