Find The Joy In Giving

                                                 credits to imageshack

While I was having my dinner last night I was approached by a thin man, who appeared to be in his mid-50s, with a tinge of grey hair on his head. He was dressed casually and kinda well groomed. He came up to me and handed me a basket of soft toys. I noticed a sticker hanging loosely on the front side of the basket and flipped it over and read the back, which read as follows:

“Pardon Me I am a deaf person. Please help support my family, Donations as you wish, Thank-you, May God Bless you”.

I didn’t give it much thought, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a few light blue notes and gestured to him that I didn't require any toy. In return, he thanked me in sign language and moved on to other people. As I watched him, he approached the other tables with the same method as he had me. I noted that only one other person reached into their pocket to give him some money in an effort to please his gal with a lil' toy gift, the rest brushed him off. Some did so unkindly too. Now as I observed this, I had a mental conversation with myself, in which I asked myself questions. Was I duped? was this man in fact deaf? and even if he was deaf, so what. Being deaf does not preclude him from having a job. I questioned whether I should have given him any money at all. What he was doing was on behalf of the Association for the Deaf and Dumb? Could he make enough money to make a living at doing this, maybe? Of course he had to pay for parking or had to pay in some way to get to the eatery or around town. He faced a tremendous amount of rejection. When he was rejected, he didn’t seem offended or give anybody dirty looks as if to try to shame them. In the end, I decided that I gave him the money because he asked for it. It’s as simple as that, when someone asks and they appear to be sincere as he had, my gut reaction was to give him what I thought was a fair amount and leave it at that. It was not for me to judge if he really needed the money, nor was it for me to question if he was truly feeding his family or if he was going buy a bottle of samsu (illicit whiskey) thereafter with the change that he collected.

Many of us are asked almost daily to give money for one cause or another, more often especially at the hawker haunts. At work there is a constant flow of fundraisers for WWF, cancer research or to help out a family who lost their house in a fire or to support some other cause. At home we are besieged with commercials which show us people in far off lands who live in abject poverty and we are told by Oprah Winfrey that just a little bit of our money will help these people out in tremendous ways. On the street we are often approached by beggars, the homeless, bogus monks and nuns and people looking for a quick ringgit.

We are overwhelmed in our daily lives with who to give to and how much we should give. Many of us make a simple choice not to give at all, that way we are being equal to everyone, some choose to give through their church or through certain respected and known charitable organizations.

I don’t believe there is any right or wrong answer to who we choose to give to. I do know that it is good to give when we can, it does well for the receiver and in the grand plan of life, and it does even greater good for us, the giver.

So many of us are blessed with so much, yet instead of sharing, we hold on to everything we have and rant on facebook for the things we don't, but crave for and desire. Why, simple because we worked hard for it and we believe that others have the opportunity to work hard as well. Of course the problem with trying to hold on to money or other material things in our life is that the tighter our grip, the more we lose. Conversely, I find and have come to believe that when we share our blessings, we often find that everything we freely give returns to us in so many beautiful ways.

Bottom line, we cannot give to everyone that asks, we must try level best to make wise choices. I say no to many organizations each year simply because I cannot afford to offer my support to every cause. I do give when I can to charitable organizations. I almost always give to people on the street or as in the above case in the food court who approached me for money. I usually try to dig into my pocket and offer with a smile. As taught to me by my late-Dad, giving extra/loose change is strictly a no-no as we have to be mindful to offer respect to the recipient too. "If you want to give, then it must be notes my son, not coins", Dad often reminded me.

Of course money is only one way of giving, in many aspects of our life, people are not asking for our money, sometimes they are simply asking for someone to care, someone to listen to them, someone to help them in a way that would appear insignificant to us, however mean the world to them.

We are presented with many opportunities to give in many forms. Giving is a gift to us, more than it ever is to the receiver of our gift. This in essence is the magic behind giving of ourselves, giving of our gifts.

"Our life depends on others so much that at the root of our existence is a fundamental need for love. That is why it is good to cultivate an authentic sense of responsibility and concern for the welfare of others."
~ His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama

Today, when we are asked to give in some form I hope that the compassion and loving-kindness in us would offer to place our hand in our actual or proverbial pockets and give whatever we could afford with a smile on our faces and love in our hearts and do so without conditions nor calculative regrets. The secret is, our reward for giving will always be greater than the gift we give.




"Walk on a trail of loving kindness
Walk on a path of compassion
And all else around you will be beautiful."
Every Blessing