The Happiness of Giving Our Best
When a friend of mine voiced the season’s most frequently spoken complaint—that the holidays were altogether too commercialized—I got to thinking about how compelling the whole gift-giving ritual is, how everybody gets swept up in it, even when it goes against the grain of their personal beliefs about how things should be.
“What drives it, really?” I wondered. Oh sure, for some it’s a mindless response to the relentless advertising campaigns. For others it’s an unquestioned tradition. For others still, a bowing to social pressure.
But even when we don’t question why we feel compelled to give gifts this time of year—to shop or make things or to give of our time–we do put thought into what we will give. And even though times are tough and wallets thin, we want to give the best that we can—something that will please or help or be useful, something that will say, “I care,” and give joy.
Even if we only write a card or note, or make a phone call or visit, or do a kindness, what drives us, the irresistible force that’s behind it, seems to me to be an almost universal upwelling of love. And that, I think, is the miracle of it all. And that’s the power behind its contagion.
Love just grabs your heart and carries you along on its unstoppable tide. It makes you want to give the very best you have to offer, because nothing less will satisfy love’s sweet command; nothing less will do. And that’s where the joy comes from, and the peace. It comes from saying yes to love and giving it away the very best way you can.
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