Acting on impulse.

One of the "teachings" in the 29 Gifts project is that you are not supposed to plan out your gifts in advance.  The idea is that you learn to recognize and remain open to the opportunities for giving that present themselves to you.  So, I try hard not to lie in bed at night and start brainstorming about tomorrow's gift.  It is totally against my instincts to be so unprepared.  What if the whole day goes by, and I don't find that chance to give?  Will I have to start over?  Will I have failed?  Slowly, I am learning to let go of the need for control.  I am beginning to understand that it is acting in the moment, when you are ready to see what you could or should do, that is most rewarding. 

Learning to give, with an open heart, and without the expectation of anything in return, isn't always as easy as it seems it should be.  In theory, I think we all believe that we can give in this way, and that we do.  We write checks to charity, we help an older woman with her grocery bags, we step on the breaks to let someone else into traffic.  I do not dismiss these simple gifts -- they are very important, and these are the steps that we all take that affect the world around us in a very immediate way. 

But, there are some gifts that take more work.  Maybe we all encounter circumstances that make us want to avert our eyes, close our hearts, and walk away.  Getting involved sometimes means getting burned.  Getting involved sometimes means confronting our own ugly opinions, judgements, and assumptions about others.  When we look away from that Mom slapping her child in the grocery store, or avert our eyes from the dissheveled homeless man asking for some spare change, isn't there inevitably an internal struggle?  What is the right thing to do?  What will happen if I do it?  What will happen if I don't?  Am I a bad person for walking away?  For refusing to get involved?  I believe these are thoughts that we all process.  Or maybe I am projecting, but I will confess that I struggle with these thoughts.  And most often, I allow fear to drive my inaction.  It is so much easier to disengage.

Yesterday morning, Saturday, I received an email, asking something of me.  The email was from someone I met under very difficult circumstances,  in the context of my job.  This person continues to face some tremendous life struggles, not of his own making.  It is very difficult for me to confess, in such a public way, that my reaction was fear.  I was afraid that if I continue to engage with this person, I will be responsible for staying involved.  I was afraid that if I give of myself in this circumstance, I will put a lot of things on the line that I could lose -- my time, my trust, and in this case, depending on where things lead, maybe even my job.  And, I became resentful that this person was asking this of me, whether he recognized it or not.  I read the email, read it again more carefully, and decided to join my family outside on the first gorgeous Saturday of the season.  I tried to put the email out of my mind, because it wasn't fair for this person to encroach on my weekend time this way. 

My family was in the driveway, painting floor boards for the dinghy that will eventually stay on the sailboat.  There were enough cooks in that kitchen, so I unfolded my soccer mom chair in a sunny spot, and read a couple chapters in 29 Gifts.  It so happens that these chapters delved into the spiritual, and healing.  Stuff about re-channeling the energy flow in your body, and relinquishing attachments to "stuff".  The author wrote about her own instinct to avoid a man passed out on the sidewalk.  Blocks after passing him, in the rain, she realized she was supposed to help him.  And in doing so, she would help herself.  And so, she did. 

Somehow, even while absorbed in my own 29 Gifts experiment, I failed to connect the dots.  I was trying to learn about giving, and here was a request -- very directly asking me to give of myself.  In formulating the reply in my head where I explained why I wouldn't be able to help, why this request was just too much, why when I said I would be there, I didn't mean like that, I was erecting barriers in front of myself.  Was it entirely serendipitous that, within the next hour, I read about the need to open our hearts, and our hands, and to release our fears?  

Later in the day, I replied to the email.  I said yes, I wanted to help.  And  by the time I wrote it, I meant it.  Not because I thought it was the right thing to do, but because I wanted to do it.  Sometimes we doubt ourselves too much.  Sometimes, you can learn so much just by listening to that inner voice, telling you what you already know is right. 

Yesterday's gift was to slow down and say "yes" when my knee jerk reaction was to look away and keep walking.  I am less certain that this was a gift to the recipient than it was a gift to myself.  But it was exactly what I was supposed to do.