Journaling Prompts
What is a Gift?:
The whole season between Thanksgiving and the winter holidays (Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa) are geared around the symbolism of giving, whether it be creating and sharing a beautiful meal, or making a list and checking it twice. What wonderful tangible and intangible gifts have you given and received in your life, and what made those gifts meaningful? Were they expected or a surprise? And how does reciprocity play a role in gift giving? What type of generosity do you prefer to demonstrate and to receive? Does everyone qualify as a gift recipient in your orbit, or are gifts for children alone?
Generous Spirit:
We all know someone (or more than one person) who embodies the spirit of giving by his or her attitude or actions through time and love. Who has the most generous spirit? What in that person's history do you think created that kind of generous nature? What have they taught you about how to give from the heart, even when you may feel bereft? Does having a generous spirit give the giver more than it takes away? Is there someone for whom you'd do anything, or vice versa?
Selfish/Selfless:
Do you allow yourself to practice healthy self-care? Women (especially) tend to give a lot of themselves to their families and friends. Are you the type of person who gives it all away, or do you find ways of keeping some of you for you? Are you ever awed by the selfless-seeming figures presented by history or religion - Mother Teresa, Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, or do you recognize that they don't live in the real world with dishes to do and bills to pay? What balance do you find between generously providing for others and providing for yourself?
Charity and Generosity:
There are all sorts of ways to be generous - money, volunteering...what causes mean the most to you and make you feel that you can be generous? What do you sacrifice to provide that generosity? How do you balance between giving to causes and institutions that impact you directly (your own place of worship or kids' school) vs. those that impace the greater world outside of your orbit? Does charity start at home, and if so, where does it end?
Grand Gesture:
What action could you take, physical, emotional or spiritual, to show the ones you love how much they mean to you? Have you been on the receiving end of a grand gesture and what did it mean to you...were you grateful, blissful, guilty? How do you hold memories of great events in your life - a proposal, your wedding, the birth of a child, a major birthday, and how did the different types of generosity displayed by your loved ones influence your experience and your memories?
Music
Quotes
Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need. Kahlil Gibran
That's what I consider true generosity. You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing. Simone de Beauvoir
Generosity with strings is not generosity; It is a deal. Marya Mannes
To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue; these five things are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness. Confucius
A really great man is known by three signs... generosity in the design, humanity in the execution, moderation in success. Otto von Bismarck
Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity. Albert Camus
Thoughtfulness for others, generosity, modesty, and self-respect are the qualities which make a real gentleman or lady. Thomas H. Huxley
He who gives what he would as readily throw away, gives without generosity; for the essence of generosity is in self sacrifice. Henry Taylor
At best the family teaches the finest things human beings can learn from one another generosity and love. But it is also, all too often, where we learn nasty things like hate, rage and shame. Barbara Ehrenreich
Candor and generosity, unless tempered by due moderation, leads to ruin. Tacitus
Curiosity endows the people who have it with a generosity in argument and a serenity in their own mode of life which springs from their cheerful willingness to let life take the form it will. Alistair Cooke
Generosity during life is a very different thing from generosity in the hour of death; one proceeds from genuine liberality and benevolence, the other from pride or fear. Horace Mann
Generosity is not giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is giving me that which you need more than I do. Kahlil Gibran
Generosity is nothing else than a craze to possess. All which I abandon, all which I give, I enjoy in a higher manner through the fact that I give it away. To give is to enjoy possessively the object which one gives. Jean-Paul Sartre
Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion. Mohandas Gandhi
Happiness exists on earth, and it is won through prudent exercise of reason, knowledge of the harmony of the universe, and constant practice of generosity. Jose Marti
No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure. Emma Goldman
Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present. Albert Camus
The poor don't know that their function in life is to exercise our generosity. Jean-Paul Sartre
You see, antiquated ideas of kindness and generosity are simply bugs that must be programmed out of our world. And these cold, unfeeling machines will show us the way. Bill Gates
We would all like a reputation for generosity and we'd all like to buy it cheap. Mignon McLaughlin
I hate the giving of the hand unless the whole man accompanies it. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another's pain, life is not in vain. Helen Keller
The best way to find yourself, is to lose yourself in the service of others. Gandhi
Almsgiving tends to perpetuate poverty; aid does away with it once and for all. Almsgiving leaves a man just where he was before. Aid restores him to society as an individual worthy of all respect and not as a man with a grievance. Almsgiving is the generosity of the rich; social aid levels up social inequalities. Charity separates the rich from the poor; aid raises the needy and sets him on the same level with the rich. Eva Peron
It has always seemed strange to me...The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. John Steinbeck
Many people despise wealth, but few know how to give it away. Francois de La Rochefoucauld
When a man dies he clutches in his hands only that which he has given away during his lifetime. Jean Jacques Rousseau
One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest. Maya Angelou
There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life -- happiness, freedom, and peace of mind -- are always attained by giving them to someone else. Peyton Conway March
There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us. 'Tis good to give a stranger a meal, or a night's lodging. 'Tis better to be hospitable to his good meaning and thought, and give courage to a companion. We must be as courteous to a man as we are to a picture, which we are willing to give the advantage of a good light. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Money is like manure; it's not worth a thing unless it's spread around encouraging young things to grow. Thornton Wilder
The habit of giving only enhances the desire to give. Walt Whitman
You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give. Winston Churchill
You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give. Kahlil Gibran
What is bought is cheaper than a gift. Portuguese Proverb
A wise lover values not so much the gift of the lover as the love of the giver. Thomas รก Kempis
The only gift is a portion of thyself. Ralph Waldo Emerson
We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers. Seneca
We do not quite forgive a giver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being bitten. Ralph Waldo Emerson
But it is a cold, lifeless business when you go to the shops to buy something, which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith's. Ralph Waldo Emerson
If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give. George MacDonald
The manner of giving is worth more than the gift. Pierre Corneille
What we are is God's gift to us. What we become is our gift to God. Eleanor Powell
