The Good Samaritans Gift

Tis the season for giving. But sometimes it is easier to give than to receive, simpler to express sympathy than to accept it with grace,

I was reminded of this from an event in San Francisco. I was visiting with an old college friend, Tom Swift, and we were on our way to an early breakfast in Sausalito when we got off the highway ramp and were stuck at a red light. There was an old couple, relatively well dressed but standing mournfully at the lights with a cardboard sign seeking help. I gave it no thought till I saw Tom roll down his window and gesture to the woman who ran up to our car and to whom Tom handed over a few dollars. That seemed to start a chain reaction among the motorists at the light and pretty soon a few more cars owners beckoned the couple to give them a few dollars. As we rolled past the couple, I could see the man overcome with emotion with tears in his eyes while his wife cuddled up and kissed him, both their faces were awash with wonder and gratitude. He may have been cynical before but no more and her belief in the goodness of random strangers seemed justified. Receiving help and sympathy apparently is sometimes more difficult than the act of giving…

Yet there are different reactions to these acts of individual generosity. I have seen a beggar woman who has been around the World Bank building in Washington for the last twenty years. She has been at the same corner with the same sign “help me” and passerby’s often drop coins into her outstretched hands. She has not changed and indeed her reaction to the alms is curiously one of a sense of entitlement. People going to the bank are rich and she is poor and so the rich owe the poor.

Then there is the reaction of wonder and gratitude reflected in the face of that couple in San Francisco. These are most often people who have fallen unexpectedly on hard times, and as Tom explained, a prime cause has been the rising cost of healthcare.

Then there are still others who receive a gift when they are down and out but which stimulates in them a determination to give back to others when they prosper.

But what I really wanted to explore is the mind set of the receiver of gifts. It is easy to understand what drives the Good Samaritan, but what about the beneficiary of these gifts?

A great many cultures deliver variations of the message that it's better to give than to receive. This identifies us as good people, selfless, and perhaps even self-sacrificing.
Thus, by being giving people we believe that we earn the approval of others and avoid being the recipients of their disapproval. The self-esteem issue is often closely entwined with the nature of a giver. Often we may unconsciously believe that we don't deserve to receive. As long as we are giving we don't have to deal with the issue of what we deserve to receive.

Of course it is easy to give. After all then people thank us for our kindness and generosity, and we get to view ourselves as good people. Being kind and generous also gives us power. We have the ability to effect change and improvement in the lives of others. A related benefit is that we get to avoid feeling vulnerable. To me, this was initially the least obvious benefit of not receiving, so I suspect that it might be the most powerful one.

But it is in receiving that you discovery the challenge of who you are. For we have been given the message while growing up is that the appropriate response to a compliment is modesty to the point of humility. Ideally, we imply that we have never given a thought to the possibility that we have even a minor talent or gift. Some of us may have been even conditioned to the point where we believe that even to contemplate receiving in any form marks us as selfish and self-centered.

Giving spontaneously, without the need to bolster low self-esteem, to create a favorable appearance, to control relationships, or to protect oneself from vulnerability is the really true act of generosity. When it is practiced in a way which is designed to protect our fixed ideas of who we are it bears little relationship to generosity. Similarly when we refuse the generosity of others, our energy is tied up in resistance, in the attempt to preserve our emotional/mental status quo. We find, as well, that our attempts to genuinely love and nurture ourselves feel like a struggle. And it should not for gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy.

“Perhaps the most overrated virtue on our list of shoddy virtues is that of giving” writes John Steinbeck, “Giving builds up the ego of the giver, makes him superior and higher and larger than the receiver……. it is so easy to give, so exquisitely rewarding. Receiving, on the other hand, if it be well done, requires a fine balance of self-knowledge and kindness. It requires humility and tact and great understanding of relationships. In receiving you cannot appear, even to yourself, better or stronger or wiser than the giver, although you must be wiser to do it well”.

So in this holiday season, give a thought to the receiver of your gifts.