The Powerful Truth Why Your Giving Does Not Get You the Jackpot
Why my mother’s painful story was about depression & ethical fallacy
‘I give & give but get nothing in return’ I heard my mother first say when I was ten. I heard these words from her often in the course of years we spent together. She would sound so sad & lost as she said it & my heart would break every single time.
These words have torn into my soul & become a part of me I am unable to part with yet want to feverishly disown. You see I became a giver too. A giver who saw emptiness & loneliness in giving but one who does not know how to stop.
To this day my mother feels sorrow at how much of herself she lost while serving others. She grew up in the 1960s & 70s. Women of this era were indoctrinated early into the sorry culture of placing their needs last. Most of them saw a different life for their daughters. Because my mother suffered from extreme anxiety she made me a giver too.
Two years ago I had a breakdown. I had two choices- step into the abyss or turn my life around. I chose the latter. I got therapy, I ditched friends who were pushing me down the hole, quit the drink & took to running and a healthy diet. I am feeling a whole lot better. Now I think it is time to explore why the culture of giving has failed us women; why it has failed me.
Giving to Others is a Selfless Act
But can it be selfless if it turns us against the world?
What makes us givers? The beautiful act of giving to others surely originates from a force, a motivation that’s bigger than us.
Why then are we frustrated by our selfless act? Could it be because the motivation behind the act is a selfish one? When giving is motivated by conditioning & evolution it becomes self-serving. We think we are altruistic but we give from leant behaviour or because we expect something in return.
When I Was a Selfish Giver, I Saw Some Trigger Warnings
I’ll list them here for anyone who has been put off by their generosity lately.
Feeling victimised
Exhaustion
A tendency to shift blame for what was not working in my life
An ache that my life was a compromise
Little sense of who I was anymore
My therapist at the time told me to quit being generous & focus on myself. That just made me feel worse about the whole thing. I lost touch with my humanness, my reason for being & the connection I felt with the world.
Compassion and Ethics are Powerful Forces
These are also the forces that to my mind drive the beautiful act of selfless giving.
Here’s why treating giving like a transaction made me miserable.
The World Does Not Owe Me Anything
I had developed a misplaced sense of entitlement. I felt the world owed me. I was broken when those I helped did not see it the way I did.
In my experience, this is the strange paradox of altruism. It works in our favour when we give accepting the innate truth that there may be no reciprocity. We then receive in return.
Why did giving make me feel vulnerable?
I Didn’t Have Boundaries
I did not erect fences to keep the good in & bad out. I was probably not clear in my own head how altruistic I could afford to be. I kept giving & those I gave to keep receiving.
Now I think of it I should have profiled people I wanted to help. Filtering would have helped me retain my sanity & have boundaries.
Maybe if I had wanted to help a colleague at work it wouldn’t have been motive-free giving. So I should have had pre-qualifications. If I had wanted a funnel for my business I should have held a challenge first.
That’s a lot of maybes but isn’t life all about hindsight? If I knew then what I know now I would not have jumped to the same assumptions or conclusions. I cannot change the past but I can have limits in future.
People who need genuine help always return the favour. It is the filtering out that we need to get right.
Again in hindsight, there was a pattern to my giving. There was fear, there was neediness & a sense of obligation.
I Felt I Would Lose Friends and Opportunities if I Didn’t Appear Unselfish and Give
I gave because I was insecure about who I was in the bigger scheme of things. Then I felt exhausted, taken advantage of & victimised. Others were manipulating me to give more than I could.
Also, I Wonder if Continuous Giving is Sustainable
If I am giving so much that my cup looks empty, I do have the power to say NO. I’d rather not draw more than possible on my resources, time & energy.
I Think I Took it Too Personally
Most of those who accepted my gifts had nothing to give in return. Maybe they were not ungrateful when they disappeared. They may have simply been ashamed that they couldn’t show up for me.
As I stare into an emptiness carved out of that which I let go of two years back, I can appreciate giving better. When there is much bareness in the world we need givers to fill the void with their humaneness.
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