Giving: Unselfish Selfishness

My beautiful wife and I celebrated our anniversary over the weekend. We had a very nice dinner at a local restaurant. At some point in the evening, the topic of conversation turned to giving. My wife mentioned that she had heard stories of older couples out to an anniversary dinner paying for the meal of a younger couple that happened to be attending the same restaurant that evening. To make a long story short, we decided to take care of an older couple that was sitting a few feet away. The best part was they were sitting close enough to hear the conversation they had after the waiter told them a guest in the restaurant had taken care of their bill. As they tried to figure out who the mystery buyer was and persuade the waiter and owner to at least pay the gratuity, my wife and I sat just a few feet away trying not to cheese it up so much that we blew our cover. So there we sat, hearts pounding, as the woman actually got up to look around the restaurant for clues and it hit me: I hadn’t felt that filled with joy or nervously giddy since I stood at the end of the aisle waiting for my fiance to become my wife almost exactly one year ago. It had all come full circle.

I don’t write this story to toot my own horn (Certainly there are far better ways to receive recognition than posting on a couple-month old blog with a pretty small audience). But I write this in hopes that it might inspire someone. Someone that might have forgot how good it feels to give or maybe hadn’t really figured it out at all. I know I fell into one of those two categories before Saturday night. I’m not looking to start a “movement” but would just like to offer a reminder that random acts of kindness pay back tenfold whatever is given up. I could have used that reminder a long time ago.

I would love to hear about what you are doing or have done to give to others. It doesn’t need to be a big, extravagant showing and I don’t think it lessens the impact to tell others what you’ve done. So leave a comment and tell us about your generosity, you might inspire someone else.