Giving Till It Hurts

I read an article in Oprah Magazine a few weeks back on a subject that I never thought could be a problem: over giving.

The article, “Elizabeth Gilbert’s Confessions of an Over Giver” written by Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert, posed an interesting dilemma: that someone could be too generous.  

Gilbert talked about how she had always been an over giver in life. She found great joy in helping to fill a need for others but didn’t consider her giving a “destiny disrupter.”

“The over-giver doesn't expect anything in return either—except to be petted and feted and praised and loved unconditionally for the rest of time (and I was)—so that's not emotionally loaded. Nothing toxic there!”

The stakes changed with her great success as an author, she was delighted to now have the means to fund her thrill of giving to her friends whenever they needed it. She thought her giving would be a positive for all involved.

She was wrong.

“So of course I went on a full-octane over-giving bender. I gave to some charities and good causes, but mostly I gave heaps of money to people I knew and loved. I paid off my friends' credit card bills, caught them up on their mortgages, financed their dream projects, bought them plane tickets, tuition, therapy, gym memberships, vehicles. Sometimes (well, twice), I even bought them houses.”

As I read this, it all sounded great to me!  She was getting this emotional high from her generosity and her friends were getting help in an unexpected way. It was a win-win I thought.

If you stop to think about it, though, it can become toxic. I thought about how I would have felt if a friend had gone and paid off my mortgage for me or parked a new car in my driveway when I mentioned my frustration at keeping an aging one running. Like everyone, my first reaction would be, “Wow! This is awesome and I am so grateful to you.”

Once those feelings subsided however, I personally would feel as if a burden had been placed on me by accepting such an expensive gift. I’d feel a sense of debt to a friend that I’m not sure I would want. That could kill the friendship/relationship by creating a sense of imbalance because I would never be able to repay them, at least monetarily.

But there was another element to this generosity that I never considered.

“When I lost my friends, it was because I had used the power of giving on them recklessly. I swept into their lives with my big fat checkbook, and I erased years of obstacles for them overnight—but sometimes, in the process, I also accidentally erased years of dignity. Sometimes, by interrupting his biographical narrative so jarringly, I denied a friend the opportunity to learn his own vital life lesson at his own pace.”

Wow. That hit me. I saw parallels in my own world.

A few weeks back, my daughter shared with us how she really wanted to replace the hand me down rug that she was using in her apartment.

“We could buy the new rug for you,” my husband and I eagerly proposed. She hesitated but only for a minute.

“No, that’s okay. I’d rather save and buy it myself,” she cheerily responded.

We needed to be told that. We were butting in. In a mild way, granted, but butting in nonetheless.  

My daughter was just sharing with us and we went rushing in trying to get her from point A to point B. She wasn’t asking for our help, she was just sharing a thought with us.

With only one year of a regular paycheck and not much experience “building” her own life, we would have been robbing her of the satisfaction of paying for her own “new things.” As parents, we need to be aware that sometimes we should save our two cents for the little tray at the dry cleaner register.

For me, that’s what Ms. Gilbert was driving at: that sometimes the best gift we can give doesn’t have a price tag attached to it. In my case, maybe all I really need to do is give my adult children a good listening ear and a place to feel 100 percent accepted.

That’s something that can be appreciated without obligation and I wouldn’t be robbing them of a chance to learn their own “life lessons” or experience their own earned triumphs.

Hmmm, I think I just taught myself my own life lesson.