Receiving the gift of giving
 

Lately I have received  many acts of kindness and generosity. I’m humbled, touched and grateful. And, like many people in my age group, I notice that receiving is not always comfortable.

We grew up with, “It is better to give than to receive.” We’ve been the givers, the helpers, the donors. That has often been deeply satisfying.

Yet every giver needs a receiver. It’s a cycle. In this pre-holiday season, giving is on our minds. Not just gifts for family members, friends and colleagues. Also gifts of kindness, money, practical help or volunteer time for people or causes outside our circle.

A man’s comment and a woman’s article started me reflecting on giving and receiving.
 

***

The man, in his early forties, had to flee his war-torn country with his family. He was learning English and doing all he could to become financially self-sufficient as quickly as he could. That was taking longer than he’d imagined.

“Before,” he said, “I had a business. I could support my family. My children could go to school and I could support other children to go to school too. But now I am supported.”

He appreciated the help. He was grateful. And he felt diminished.
 

***

The woman, twenty-something with student loans and living expenses, wrote an article called, “How 30 Days of Kindness Made Me a Better Person.” She had taken a challenge “to find joy in making someone’s day every day for 30 days.”

Many of her gifts involved money. She bought coffee for someone behind her in the line. She bought a hot dog for a homeless man. She paid for a copy of a favourite book for a stranger.

At the end of each day, she reflected on how being kind made her feel.

She asked, “Can random acts of kindness help you find happiness?”

As the 30 days went on, she decided they can – with exceptions.

“To find happiness through generosity, you have to suppress your ego, analyse your motives and reflect on how these acts change your perception of the world,” she says.

She adds, “My month of generosity did make me happier. Something about waking up and consciously planning to act selflessly lightened my step. It made the morning drag easier… For a precious hour or so every day, the fear, anxiety, stress and doubt of daily life didn’t plague my thoughts. I briefly forgot about myself. It was intoxicating.”
 

***

The term “helper’s high” has been used to describe the happy feeling associated with volunteering. Generous people are also more creative, flexible, resilient and open to new information. They cooperate more at work. They are able to solve complex problems more easily. They form solid, healthy relationships with others.

My conclusion. Giving is good for the giver. One hopes it is also good for the receiver.
 

***

Some quotes:
 

“Until we can receive with an open heart, we’re never really giving with an open heart. When we attach judgment to receiving help, we knowingly or unknowingly attach judgment to giving help.”
– Brené Brown

“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”­
– Winston Churchill

“It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.”
– Mother Theresa

“It is everyone’s obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what they take out of it.”
– Albert Einstein

“When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.”
– Maya Angelou
 

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I’d love to hear from you. If you have comments about this column or suggestions for future topics, e-mail Bonnie@BonnieHutchinson.com. I’ll happily reply within one business day.

By Laurel Nadon

Roses redder than roses
 

Recently my sister-in-law contacted us, saying we needed to go outside and see the northern lights. In my husband’s haste, he tripped on five sets of cross country skis and poles by the back door. We had placed them there excitedly after the first snow – which had then melted before the equipment was used.

Once the pile of ski gear had been moved outside, we stared in awe at the deep red and pale green colours spread in the night sky before us. It was my first time seeing red in the sky like that – it was a deep red, the same colour as sidewalk chalk. A red band went all across the top of the night sky. There was a green hue to the north and south, shooting stars and even a few minutes with yellow tones visible. It was nothing short of spectacular. A mom I talked to later said that her daughter had lain on the grass to watch the celestial event, saying it was like God was talking to her.

If anyone saw photos online afterwards, however, the photos were far different than reality. The photos showed fuchsia and were way more vibrant than the sky actually looked. This was frustrating to me, because the light show was phenomenal – why do we need to pretend that things are better than they are?

I didn’t try to photograph the sky because I knew my phone’s camera didn’t function well with low lighting, which also meant I was able to just marvel at the show. It turns out that the red we saw is associated with intense solar activity. The display was caused by a series of solar flares, which are explosions on the surface of the sun. It was later, looking on friends’ phones and social media, that I saw the too-perfect pictures of the lights. Part of the reason why the pictures were so vivid is because our eyes can’t pick up all of the colours that are actually in the night sky; cameras are able to gather more light than our eyes.

This strange experience reminded me of the Robert Munsch book Purple, Green and Yellow where Bridget colours herself with super-indelible-never-come-off-till-you’re-dead-and-maybe-even-later colouring markers. She also draws “lemons that were yellower than lemons and roses that were redder than roses and oranges that were oranger than oranges.” This leads to all sorts of trouble for Bridget; her mother even declares that she has ruined her life.

The difference in what shows up in a northern lights photo versus how it actually looks could also cause problems – if I had only experienced the phenomenon through photos, I might be disappointed when seeing it in person, which would be a real shame.

I want the picture to capture what I’m seeing. Sometimes I’ve been disappointed by taking a photo that isn’t as lush and vibrant as how the scene looked. It turns out that it’s just as disappointing when a photo is better than reality. It would be like writing in a diary about an event, but making it sound better than it was. The point of diary writing is to record an event; why would you want to record it incorrectly? Photography has come a long way, from black and white photos where people stood stiffly without a smile so the image wouldn’t blur. Technology has advanced, but this is going too far.

Last summer we hiked to Thompson Creek Falls in David Thompson Country. After a beautiful hike through purple fireweed with mountains as the backdrop, we neared the tall falls right after a father and son. They took a photo of our family in front of the falls, and also showed us pictures they had taken of themselves before we arrived. The grass and shrubs in front of the falls were a luminous yellow-green in his photos, and yet in front of me, was regular light green vegetation. It was a bit disorienting.

I would suggest that there are already too many instances where we pretend that things are better than they are. We try to present a picture perfect reality to others on social media; we gloss over our struggles (I left in the part about tripping on the skis on purpose). But the truth is that life is messy; things often don’t go as we plan. Sometimes the day is more laundry than dessert. But we’re not striving to live a perfect life; we’re striving to live a real life.

In my real life, the colours in the sky that night were a spectacular deep, sidewalk-chalk red – not fluorescent or hot pink. When the world around us is already a magical place, why pretend it is something different?