Be Generous

I am excited to welcome Tessa Hardiman to the blog today. She slings words together at night and teaches kids during the day. She recently released her first ebook titled Surviving and Thriving: 21 Tips for First Year Teachers. You can check out her blog here or follow her on Twitter.

Have you ever wanted to change the world?

Yes?

Okay good, we are on the same page. I have great ideas about how to help. Unfortunately, my master plans never last past the REM stage of my slumber. I wake up and never remember how I could stop world hunger or the human trafficking epidemic.

This feeling inside of me tends to either be full or empty. At times, this desire burns so brightly in my heart that I feel as if I might catch on fire. Then, there are the other times when my tank is empty. I get wrapped up in my own story.

The thing about helping is: it hurts.

Helping always hurts someone.

If you are the helper, then it “hurts” you in the effect that you are giving something of yourself. You donate your time or money that you could have used for yourself. It helps another person out, but it costs you a certain dollar amount or time/work commitment.

The fact that helping is hard is why few people ever do it. Most people just pass off the task to someone else. They think they want to help, but they really don’t. They like the idea of helping, but the part about having to do some work scares them away. It’s so much easier to just sit at home and ignore the hurt.

But you don’t want to live like this, do you?

I didn’t think so. I don’t, either.

We’ve got to stop being people who just talk and start being people of action. Tweet that!

This time of year people are full of good intentions. I’m as guilty as anybody. I get really amazing ideas (see example in first paragraph!), but I hardly ever follow through with them. This year, I am working on being intentional about my helping. If you would like to join me, you can hop on over to my website and keep up with my blog. Let’s make the end of 2012 a season of generosity.

It’s up to you now: are you going to be generous? Tell us how in the comments.