Generous Gestures
What does it mean to be generous? Is it just doing something kind for someone else? And what does it mean for the person who is receiving the act of generosity? I think we often undervalue our acts of generosity. We don’t realize what it actually means.
I am currently going through a time in my life that I call Unseelie. The term Unseelie comes from fairy tales and relates to evil and malicious fairies. Ogres who let bones pile up in their caves are Unseelie. Being Unseelie for me means existing in a state of apathetic depression. I’m currently very orgre-esque. I’m depressed, and I don’t care that I’m depressed. Some would argue this time frame of my life has been all my life. Part of this Unseelie time means not caring about household maintenance. My dishes pile up in the sink. Little flies circle over the sink like mini-helicopters hovering over a high speed chase on the expressway. Hot summer days raise a stench from congealed potato soup and well, whatever that gray fuzzy mush used to be. I clean my dishes, just enough to make my next meal. I know I’m painting a truly disgusting picture and it isn’t ‘breeding diseases’ bad, but bad enough that you don’t want your mother to see it.
But honestly who am I washing the dishes for? Myself? I certainly don’t have anybody I’m trying to impress. I know I should care more about my personal environment and when I’m feeling positive and energize, I do. In general, I rise to the expectations of others or I present my very best to those for whom I have esteem.
You might be asking yourself right now what does this have to do with generosity?
In spite of my not caring because no one was going to see the mess, someone saw the mess. Someone I like, someone I actually care about what she thinks of me, came by to visit and wanted some water. The last time she saw my kitchen I had a pile of dishes stacked up in the sink. While there was a point between the two times where I had everything cleaned up, she never saw that point and really the only reason that moment existed is I had a bunch of people in my home for a barbecue. I played it off … ‘haha, yeah, look at me, Mr. Lazy… haha’ but I was horrified.
Part of my personality is I hate the feeling of being judged. I feel like everyone else in this world gets to be rude, obnoxious, mean, trite, trivial, irreverent, mischievous and puckish with little consequence. I feel so trapped. Yet, the very things I’m afraid I’m going to be judged for… white trash goodfornothing is exactly what my Unseelieness causes me to be.
It isn’t like this was a delivery person seeing my stack of dirty dishes, my broken sack of wine bottles on a doomed Donner Party-like journey to the recycling center… this was a friend, the very type of person I whom I want to think good things about me.
Last Friday, I came home and immediately realized something was different. The kitchen counter was cleared off. The kitchen sinks were empty. The glass that needed to be recycled was gone. Someone, something, a true kitchen fairy, had swooped in and taken control of an out of control situation. This friend who had witnessed the mess in a passing way had taken it upon herself to get directly involved in the mess.
She hasn’t known me for that long but the truth of the matter is I’m not an easy person to do things for. I will put up so many barriers and defenses as to make it feel like storming the beaches of Normandy is an easier task. Of course part of the reason for this defensiveness is I don’t want to feel like I’m being pitied. I hate charity from friends more than anything as it feeds my feelings that I am barely able to live life correctly as it is.
Her action wasn’t charity. She didn’t leave a note or anything indicating what she had done. There wasn’t any effort on her part to claim ‘I owed her’ for her generosity. Her action was pure kindness given to me without my getting a chance to object, to dissuade, distract, or deflect. It was a ray of sunshine on a cloudy overcast day.
I am trying hard not to make it seem a lot more than what it was, but the difference between a good day and a bad day isn’t about good or bad things happening in the day, but whether someone cares if good or bad things happened. To her, it may have been a set of kind of gross chores. To me, it was a direct clear unarguable sign that someone cared. Someone cared that I was letting things languish. Cared enough not to address it with words, which carry little weight with me, but with action, which means the world to me.
Generous gestures are powerful. You may never know when one might change someone’s outlook, turn a bad period of their life into something more. And when these gestures are made, you can’t ask the person if they want you to make the gesture, because that is too much like them asking for help. I would never have been able to ask anyone to help me clean my kitchen. People like me don’t ask for help. Generosity needs to be thrust upon some people. They need to have the controls taken from their hands and action taken on their behalf.
We underestimate what a generous gesture means to others, especially if it is just a bit of effort on our part. Taking a moment, to not only tell someone you care, but demonstrate it through action, will resonate with someone for a long time. In this life, feeling cared for is an amazing revitalizing thing. Don’t underestimate your generous gestures. The recipient may not know how to express gratitude, may not even fully realize the benefits, and some people may dismiss the gestures completely, but in the end a few will be lifted from an apathetic depressed funk and feel a sense of renewed vitality. Has this act of generosity changed me from ogre to something more fit for civilization? No, sadly not. That is a long stretch of road I still have to travel, but the journey is a lot easier for the moment. And that means the world.
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About Sean
Sean D. Francis is a technologist, writer, and geek. He podcasts, makes video, and dabbles in all the geeky genres including horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. View all posts by Sean → This entry was posted in Thoughts. Bookmark the permalink.← Universal Geek: Intelligence is Trending | Universal Geek: Aunt May Did Not Cut Up Dirty Basketballs →
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http://www.seandfrancis.com Sean D. Francis
