Generosity

Henry was in town and stayed at our place for a couple nights. While here, we made him help assemble shelves from Ikea (we all broke a sweat) and get dinner. He also bought us a stud finder and drill. Egad. Talk about being terrible hosts.

I realized something about generosity. Being truly generous is an active thing. You have to go out of your way to be generous. I’m passive generous, which is to say, not that generous at all. I’m generous when the situation arises, when it comes to me. But it rarely happens that people ask for generosity. Truly generous people, like Henry or my brother-in-law, they go out of their way to be generous, they initiate their generosity instead of waiting for it.

I’d like to be more like Henry and Peter. I actually think interacting with them has changed me through the years, but I still have far to go until I reach their level.