The Gift of Not Giving

She thanked me for not giving her the gift. She said that less is more. “Please give it to someone who will appreciate it.”

More than five years ago she loaned me a complete series of books. I assured her I would return them after I read them. Since then, I have moved across the country. When I’ve visited her, I am never able to fit them into my luggage. Before I mailed the books to her, I asked if she would like them back.

It seems that my life in my 20’s, 30’s and 40’s was about acquiring things. Then something happened in my 50’s. I realized that I didn’t really need to keep accumulating stuff. It is a harsh reality when we move—packing and unpacking gets harder with each subsequent relocation. Things that had meaning are just more weight to add to the moving truck that costs more money to move to a new house where it will sit in a garage or buried at the back of a drawer. In a box in the garage or stuffed high up in a closet that I never open, it is not something that I am currently using and probably won’t use.

When I started the Giving Challenge, I created a list of guidelines to follow. One was that I will not give anything that I was “just going to throw away”. The criteria that I would use to determine if it had value was if it has meaning to me, it is worthy of giving to someone else who wants it.

This set of books would not have given away because I was a steward of them until the time came that I could return them to their rightful owner. This caused me to think about the golden rule, “Do unto others as I would have them do unto me.” I don’t really want to be given something that I do not want. How many times have I accepted something, just because I didn’t know how to say “No, you really mustn’t . . .”

Yes, but there is a twist to the moral of this story. Having the confidence to say what I want and what I don’t want, is a good thing. However, I always want to be sensitive to the giver’s feelings. They may place a high value on something they want me to have. If this is the case, I will smile, say thank you, and accept their gift graciously. The last thing I want to do is refuse their gift and give them a broken heart.

In giving (and sometimes not giving),

Robin