A few weeks ago somebody wrote to me:
“I am actively working on being a “Good Receiver” this year.”
That set me thinking about being a good giver, about being a good receiver, and lots of associated things.
Let’s start with a story:
The story
It’s the mid-90s. I’m working for a software house based in London. Most of the time I work on client sites in the North of England, but every once in a while I get a day back at the office. When that happens, my boss takes me out for a pie and a pint so we can chat about my project and catch up on office gossip. On this occasion we’re walking along Piccadilly towards our chosen pub. Colin is striding along as he usually does, and then suddenly he stops.
“Hang on a mo’…”
he says, and starts fishing in his pockets.
He finds a five pound note. Then he turns round and walks back a few paces to where someone is sitting hunched up on a filthy sleeping bag in a doorway. He puts the fiver in their hand and says a few words. He walks back to me, and we continue to the pub.
A piece of my worldview just got snagged and starts to unravel.
The back-story
This story really started about 35 years earlier, just half a mile away on Regent Street. A mother was making her twice-yearly trip to the hallowed halls of Liberty’s to buy fabric for dressmaking. She had a five-year-old in tow who didn’t like Liberty’s and was barely pacified by the promise of a visit to Hamley’s toy shop on the way home. Seeing someone sitting hunched in a doorway, the child fished for some pocket-money and stepped towards them. The mother, horrified, grabbed the child and frog-marched them away while delivering the lecture:
“You mustn’t do that! You mustn’t encourage them! If you give them money, they’ll just spend it on drink!”
She continued at length with variations on these themes.
The child, and later the adult, weren’t really convinced by the arguments. But these arguments gave me permission close my eyes to the harsh reality of poverty and homelessness. It wasn’t my problem. I was doing the “right thing” by looking away, by walking past. I didn’t have to look these scary people in the eye. It was their fault that they were where they were.
The fall-out
Without saying a word to me, Colin prompted me to face up to my cowardice and selfishness. I steeled myself to follow his example, to hand over a few pounds and look the recipient in the eye as I did it. I found it extraordinarily difficult the first time, but it got easier. Eventually I made a point of carrying coins and small denomination notes, and occasionally handing over more than the price of a cup of coffee. I hope some of the people who received these gifts spent the money on booze. I know I wouldn’t want to sit in a freezing doorway while I was sober.
My need to give
I make stuff. I make stuff because I like making stuff, and like many crafters I find that the quantity of stuff I make far exceeds what I can use myself. Some of what I make can be sold or donated to charity shops. That’s not the case for my cosmetics. The legal requirements for selling cosmetics (at least in the UK and the EU) involve a certification process that costs more per recipe than the cost of my annual output. So realistically, I have to either give away my products, destroy them, or stop making them.
Giving things away is not easy.
While I strive to be a good giver, I’m more than just grateful for good receivers. I’m dependent upon them. I’m still learning how to give and to receive, and the more I learn the more I realize how much more there is to learn.
Just what makes this simple transaction of giving and receiving a gift so complex? Here’s some of what I’ve learnt so far.
Suspicion – “what do you want from me?”
There are stories of people offering banknotes to passers-by in city streets, and finding that no-one accepts them. When those who refused a banknote are questioned afterwards, they are convinced that the notes must be counterfeit or otherwise tainted. It was just too good to be true. There had to be a catch.
Sometimes there is a catch. Perhaps we are being offered a gift by the fairy-folk. If we accept, we will forfeit our firstborn child, or our soul, or both.
Sometimes the catch is an implied obligation. We are all familiar with sales promotions and expect the “too good to be true” offer to be just too good to be true. We suspect that the promotional gift will prove faulty. Then we expect to be hounded by salespeople who will try to convince us that we have an obligation to buy more at an inflated price. Our past experiences convince us that things will always be this way.
Value – “Easy come, easy go.”
I see people value objects, or another person’s time, according to what they have to pay for them.
We like free stuff, just as long as we don’t have to engage with anyone in order to get it. At trade fairs we stuff our pockets and briefcases with free pens and document holders, and any other promotional items on offer. When we stay in hotels, we clear the complementary toiletries into our suitcases. When we get home we keep this stuff for a while until it gathers some dust. Then we throw it in the trash because, hey, it’s not worth anything because it was free.
We often value other people’s time in similar fashion. In a work environment, the opinions of a highly paid executive carry more weight than those of a specialist who is paid less. In a more extreme example, I’ve seen salaried staff working for a charity direct well-qualified volunteers to menial tasks. Volunteers are not paid. Their time and expertise has no value.
There is a certain logic to this way of valuing material things and others’ efforts. How can I argue that my baked beans, slowly crafted with the best ingredients I can find, and lots of love, have more value than those in tins sold at three for a pound? If I need to explain, I’ve already lost the argument.
Hierarchy – “It is better to give than to receive”.
It was probably a well-intentioned attempt to persuade people away from the deadly sins of greed and gluttony, but the saying “it is better to give than to receive” has an unfortunate side-effect. If we are persuaded that it is “better” to give, then receiving becomes correspondingly “worse”. The giver becomes superior and the act of receiving becomes one of humiliation. Giving and receiving becomes a zero-sum game, in which there have to be losers so there can be winners.
The saying “it is better to give than to receive” is a paraphrase of a verse in the King James Bible. The full verse reads “I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, it is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35.)
I’ve wondered if giving became “better” rather than “more blessed” because “blessed be” has acquired pagan associations.
The Good Receivers
Among people who knit, there is a certain reverence for people who are “knit-worthy”. These are people who understand the time, the skill and the cost of materials that go into a hand-knitted garment. They understand the knitters’ need to produce, and their own role as appreciative receivers. It’s a symbiotic relationship, interdependent and without hierarchy.
There are also people who are “cook-worthy” and “cosmetic-worthy”, and I delight in those I’ve found. They give me much more than the material stuff that I share with them.
My Takeaway
I cannot criticize anyone for their attitudes to giving and receiving. For forty years I lived without putting spare change in the cup of anyone living on the streets. I’ve pocketed the pens at trade fairs and the toiletries from hotel rooms. It’s taken me a lifetime to start to see such behaviours as absurd. It would be even more absurd to expect anyone to abandon their attitudes just because I had finally changed mine.
I’m still learning how to navigate attitudes associated with giving and receiving.
If you are “cosmetic-worthy”, or “cook-worthy”, or “knit-worthy”, please know how much I value you.