Think about a time where you gave something to someone, whether it be something materialistic or sentimental, and remember how their joy brought you happiness. A single genuine smile can completely change a person’s day, which goes for the giver and the receiver. Giving can bring more than just what meets the eye to a person’s life because it can make an impact on future experiences in one’s life. The act of giving is significant in bringing true happiness to people beyond other actions that only provide something temperamental.
For the giver, giving goes into more depth than feeling good about yourself, making up for something, or boosting your ego with the thought that you provided. Giving should be from a place where you’re doing this action in order to want to give happiness to the other person. To be a giver is to truly have empathy for other people and allow yourself to feel their joy from what you give. For example, if you wrote a letter to a friend when you know they are going through something tough, you are doing this for the sole purpose of attempting to cheer them up. At the end of the day, although giving to other people isn’t about you, doing so is what makes you content and happy. Giving is something you should want to do rather than something you feel like you have to do.
The receiver is affected by the giving more than a giver probably realizes. When a person receives something, this can affect their whole day. This is because they feel they are thought about and listened to when it comes to what they need in life at that moment to be happy. Beyond the capability that receiving has on changing someone’s day, it can also impact that person’s life in the future by influencing them to do the same for others. For example, in the future after receiving from someone, a person is more likely to show kindness and give back to others because of the way this happened to them. Receiving can also change the relationship between people because of the constant reassurance that giving can do for a person. If both people, in any type of relationship, give back to one another, then it’s more likely that the relationship will be healthier.
Although the act of giving has its many benefits, it can also cause negativity in people’s lives. For the giver, it can become draining if they never receive anything back. It’s important as the giver to evaluate the relationships in your life to make sure you are getting what you need in order to be happy. Although giving is what generally brings you happiness, life is about so much more than other people’s happiness. It’s not considered selfish to identify what it is in life that brings you happiness beyond giving to other people and making sure you are receiving this as well.
The act of giving has so much power over people’s lives, probably more than most people even realize. Take a moment to think about how much you are giving and receiving and if you need to do one or the other more or less. The effects that giving has on the world are too important to ignore and can truly make a difference if everyone realized the impact it has on a person now and in the future.