Gracious Giving
Have you ever been involved in the following scene? Maybe it’s an argument between partners. Maybe it’s a parent and child. Maybe it’s someone taking to a coworker or boss.
Whatever the scene set up, the moment comes when one party complains “You don’t appreciate everything I do for you!”
It comes out painful and vindictive and fast like the breaking of an emotional dam.
“You don’t realize, you don’t appreciate all the sacrifices I’ve made for you!”
“I’ve given you everything and you don’t even show any appreciation!”
“I paid a bazillion dollars for your college and you don’t appreciate it!”
What’s going on here? Apparently there is one party who isn’t being a grateful and thankful recipient of a gift. But, also, and this is the part I want you to think about, there is a person who is not giving graciously.
The world is full of ungrateful people. Many of them are your spouses and kids and coworkers. Guess what? That has nothing to do with you! You can’t change them to be more vocally thankful for your gifts.
You can feel hurt when they are ungracious in the face of your gifts but the hurt is to your expectations, nothing else.
When you give something to someone you love it has to be without strings. You have to give without expectation of response. The joy, the reason, the ‘gift’ of the gift is the fact that you choose to give it. You choose to give it because you love that person or you respect your responsibilities to them.
If you give that gift with expectations, with strings attached you are setting yourself up for painful failure.
I’m not talking about some airy-fairy concept of unrequited love. I’m talking about taking the trash out and expecting everyone to notice and then starting a anger bank account with a balance that grows with every oversight when they don’t.
When you find yourself in the scene where the actors are talking about how wronged they have been over the years by the ungracious misrecognition of your giving here’s how you talk them down off the ledge.
I know you’re angry and hurt that they don’t recognize all that you have given to them. But you give it to them because you love them and you want them to do well. You can’t expect a quid pro quo. I know they are being ungrateful and not holding up their end of the implied social contract but the gift is your choice and a gift given with strings attached is not a gift, it is an attempt to manipulate.
The wonderful, fantastic, great news is that when a gift that is given freely is seen, and acknowledged and appreciated it is the sweetest personal connection in the world.