The healthier we become the more we give.

Or should that be the other way around?

When we give more, something happens inside us.  For a start, we find that we quite like giving; there’s a chemical kick which comes with it.  Interesting.

Taking comes in subtle forms.  Wanting to win an argument or to take control can be about taking.  The want to control breeds in a world of debate, whilst giving happens in a world of dialogue.

Scott Peck writes a whole book on how we’ll only grow communities if we put down our agendas and listen to what others hope for.*

This will make for an fascinating time in Human history as we learn to listen to ‘those who aren’t at the table of privilege – the homeless, the sick or infirm in body or mind, the poor, the unemployed, those with special needs, the refugee, the immigrant, the alien, the minority, the different, the old, the last, the least, the lonely and the lost.’**

Add to this some intriguing observations Sherry Turkle offers about children’s responses to the first sociable machines in the 1990s – the Tamagotchi and Furby:

‘Children approach sociable machines in a spirit similar to the way they approach sociable pets or people – with the hope of befriending them.’^

This is our bent: to befriend, to care, to give.

The universe invites us to such a journey, the future opening to those who give more than they take.

We also need to take, though, because no one has everything our world needs.  It’s just a different kind of taking, caught up in a vortex of receiving and giving.

(*See Scott Peck’s The Different Drum.)
(**From Brian McLaren’s We Make the Road By Walking.)
(^From Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together.)