Generosity

Opening a door, lending a pencil, even giving someone a piece of paper are all acts of generosity. It doesn’t really seem like much, but it helps that person get their work done. When someone has a friend who’s in front of me and their friend asks if they can go in front of me, I let them because I think that if my friend was the person waiting and I asked if I could go ahead, I would want that person to let me too. I never really thought about little things like that being generous, but the other day I realized that little things make a difference.

It happened when I was at my grandmas. My dad and I had just got back from picking up my mom’s birthday present. My grandma’s friend had come over and she did what most older people do. She said “Boy look at how tall you’ve gotten” and “You’re becoming such a young lady”. After that we got talking and she told me that her grandson (who’s a year younger than me) was going to the high school next year. Well I hadn’t seen the kid in two years so I forgot how old he was. Anyway I had asked her if he was going to be doing Bigger Faster Stronger, a weight lifting program our school has over the summer. Well when I asked her, she had no clue what I was talking about. I had had one of the forms in my backpack so I got it for her. As I was getting her the form I over heard her tell my grandma “Oh, she’s such a sweetheart”.

I thought to myself, sweetheart? It was just a form and I could always get another one from school. As I walked back into the kitchen and gave her the form, my grandma said “Do you want to go make a copy so you can have one?” I thought about it for a second and then told her I could just get another one, it was no big deal. Then my grandma gave me a look, that said “fine, it’s just more work for yourself”. I knew she just wanted to make things easier for me, but what’s so bad about grabbing another form from the office. Then my grandma’s friend said she would be seeing her grandson this week and she would give it to him then. That’s when I realized that by just giving my grandma’s friend that form for her grandson, I had just let him have the opportunity to do something fun over the summer. Who knows, maybe he would have gotten one of those forms, but then again maybe he wouldn’t have.

Since then I’ve opened my eyes more on being generous. Of course sometimes I get distracted from it. I hope that this letter shows people that being generous has a contagious affect on people. That soon maybe they’ll be more generous than they already are.