Generous or what?

I must admit I'm not an especially generous person. I'm not in the habit of giving loans, giving sandwiches to homeless people, paying for someone else's groceries, volunteering at a food bank, helping someone move house, or just giving things away.

On the other hand I'm generous in other ways. I often give large tips to restaurant servers and cabbies and hairdressers, I give clothes and books to charity, I give money to charity, and I've given blood 33 times. So I'm not all bad.

Of course generosity is a slippery concept, and depends very much on the context. If a billionaire gives a sandwich to a homeless person, that's not exactly generous because the billionaire has nothing to lose. But if someone desperately poor gives the sandwich, that's generosity in spades.

Generosity can also take subtle and invisible forms we tend to overlook. Like taking the time to listen to someone who's in distress, or being tactful about someone's awful cooking or hideous haircut, or guiding someone out of a tight parking space.

And generosity can mean not just giving something but waiving something. Like cancelling a debt or letting a flat rent-free or not charging for a bit of professional advice (not that I've ever been the recipient of such gestures, sorry to say).

I could resolve to be more generous, but I don't think it's something you can just switch on. I think it's something that comes naturally, maybe with generous parents or generous friends showing the way.

Anyway, what about all the fascinating and thought-inspiring posts I've churned out in the last 16 years. Isn't that a magnificent act of generosity?

Jumping the gun

What struck me about the Lincolnshire couple whose baby was born 11 weeks early in New York was the amazing generosity shown to them by so many people.

Instead of a chorus of "Why on earth fly when you're heavily pregnant?", people were falling over themselves to help the unfortunate couple - Katie Amos and Lee Johnston - who were facing a £130,000 medical bill.

The hospital said the couple's travel insurance would cover the bill. A housing charity gave them somewhere to live. A nurse at the hospital gave Katie a pile of clothes. And thousands of pounds have been donated to help them with their living expenses - as their son Dax won't be fit enough to fly back until March.

Actually quite a few things struck me about this story:

1) The potentially ruinous cost of health care in the States. People are frequently bankrupted by astronomical bills.
2) Such a basic event as having a baby doesn't qualify for free assistance but is fully chargeable.
3) In the light of (1) and (2), they were wise not to skimp on travel insurance.
4) They'll have time to get to know New York very well on their enforced 10-week stay.
5) Is their son now entitled to American citizenship, having been born in the USA?
6) They'll probably be too embarrassed to set foot in the USA ever again.
7) Alternatively they'll make lots of new friends over there and be keen to keep in touch.
8) Dax's first words are likely to be "Give me some candy, dude".

Or in the light of his expensive birth, they might even be "Buddy, can you spare a dime?"

Pic: Lee Johnston and Katie Amos

Generosity

I think of myself as a not especially generous person, but that may be because I'm thinking of generosity in the money sense. I'm probably quite generous in other senses though, like being forgiving, or being empathetic, or overlooking faults.

I quite easily forgive people for hurting me, or upsetting me, or being rude to me. I don't hold grudges for years afterwards or plot their early demise. I just assume they were having a bad day or didn't think before they spoke.

I try hard to understand other people's feelings and opinions and circumstances. I don't instantly dismiss them as idiots, cranks or time-wasters. I assume there are good reasons why people are miserable, or poor, or intolerant, and I want to know what those reasons are.

I accept that people have all sorts of faults, the same as I do, and I work around those faults rather than condemning them. Cutting them a bit of slack seems kinder than making them feel guilty and incompetent.

I don't let an instant dislike of someone put me off them. However disconcerting a person may be at first glance, I always give them a chance to correct me and show me their finer qualities. And they usually have some.

I will give people time. If someone has a complicated problem, or a long tale of woe, I'll hear them out for as long as it takes. I'm not one of those super-busy, self-important people who always have something more urgent to attend to.

I try to accept people as they are and not as I would like them to be. I try to respect their uniqueness and individuality and not force them to be something I find more comfortable or definable.

In return I hope others will be generous to me in the same ways. That they'll give me time, be forgiving, be compassionate, allow for my faults.

We can have all the material goodies in the world, we can have beautiful homes and possessions, but if we aren't generous to each other, if we treat each other brusquely and harshly, then life becomes cold and sad.

It's the people who've been generous to me, who've treated me with unexpected warmth and sensitivity, that bring sunshine to my life. They make up for all those who were mean and curt and discouraging, those whose hearts are frozen.

Thoughts of posterity

Some people as they get older start thinking about "leaving something for posterity", something of permanent benefit to others after they've died. They don't want to just leave future generations to get on with it.

It's a very laudable aim, better than simply enjoying your life and then clocking off, and who cares what comes next? The desire to add something to the world rather than leaving it the way it is, or worse, is admirable.

The result is new charities, new museums, major inventions and wonderful pieces of literature that leave the world a richer and more fulfilling place. So many everyday experiences that we take for granted are owed to such benefactors.

I'd like to pass something on in the same generous way, but of course we don't all have the skills or the cash to do so. We mostly content ourselves with trying to improve the life we're living and having some fun on the way. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Unfortunately some people's idea of leaving something for posterity is not quite so positive. All those armies and guerilla fighters who believe that years of carnage and violence will lead to a bright new era are in general sadly mistaken. What they usually leave behind after their exertions are shattered societies.

Neither does leaving something for posterity mean all that worthless junk that politicians and VIPs like to dump on us - pointless memorials, plaques, statues and monuments that do nothing for anyone but simply rust and rot.

Of course the best thing to leave the next generation is the knowledge and wisdom that will help them too to improve the world. Who knows, I might be doing a bit of that.

Pic: The Peggy Guggenheim Museum of Art in Venice, opened in 1951