A Frenchman recently won 200 million in the European lottery. It was the second largest winning in the lottery’s history. He said that he only played the large jackpots for the sole purpose of creating an endowment fund to protect and revitalize the forests, in West Africa and in his own country. He gave nearly all of his winnings away to the endowment, saying, “…giving makes people happy, and constitutes a tremendous lever for transforming indignation into concrete and useful actions.”
When they choose to, human beings have the capacity to do so much good. More and more people are discovering that giving is far more fulfilling than getting. The 2000 movie, Pay It Forward, was indicative of awakening humans who have begun to tame their egos. It reminds me of the saying, “You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” For generations, humans have mostly taken from our planet, without giving back. The generations that follow are bearing the brunt of the crises our world is finding itself in; but I also think they have the keys for opening the door to a brighter future.
While I am not a fan of Christmas, I believe it shows that most people, whether they believe in the Christian fable or not, truly enjoy giving. That kind of giving, unfortunately, is the giving of material things and generally we are giving a lot of useless crap. It does show; however, that we, as humans, enjoy giving. We need to take the spirit of Christmas giving into our daily lives. When we interrupt the flow of receiving and taking, by greed or fear or hoarding, we cause stagnation. We need to understand that what we do give, returns to us multiplied. The more we give, the more we have. And simply put, giving makes us happy.
