Generosity, not what you think it is.

So you know that book I told you about (you can see here if you missed it), well I have some more amazing-ness to share with you from it.

When you think of generosity what do you think of? I think of giving. Either giving of my time, my money, things, stuff, etc. There's a total different definition of it though:

"Generosity... is a way of being in the world, not a way of giving in the world. It has little to do with giving gifts, and everything to do with giving space to others to be who they are."

Wow. I read that and that was the only thought in my mind.
Wow.

There are so many people in this world. So many different kinds of people. We look different, we speak different, we think different, we act different, we feel different.....you get the idea. By being generous {giving space to others to be who they are} we are being inclusive. Creating inclusion requires being generous.

"Most often {creating inclusion} consists of simply extending a hand. That's hard to do if you are grasping tightly to your rightness, your belief system, your superiority, your assumptions about others, your definition of normal."   (FYI, I am totally and completely included in the word "your")

Patti Digh, the author, writes about her daughter's favorite "goth" store in the mall, and the boy with dreadlocks and tattoos and big holes in his earlobes who works there and how, with "great kindness", he answers all of her "Uncool Parent Questions" like: "how do you get your earlobes to do that? what does vote for pedro mean? how do you eat with that big metal thing in your tongue?"

Then she says this, and I thought this was pretty amazing:

"He and I moved from difference to similarity, not by ignoring the differences, but by walking straight toward them and talking about them."

 How awesome would our world be, if instead of ignoring our differences and passing judgements about someone in our minds etc, we walked straight toward them and talked about them in a generous, inclusive way?

Generosity comes from opening ourselves to others. "We are often more generous to people we perceive to be like us. We must extend that generosity to those we think are unlike us."

Source

Good stuff.

Good good stuff.
What do you think?

 {thanks for stopping by!!!!}