Reconsidering give-receive dynamic during COVID
Who gets more out of giving? The giver or the receiver?
A teacher came home in search of a small old toy, a piano-playing singing snowman. Her grandchildren had once played with it. Another teacher had brought a similar toy to school. A 7-year-old boy had marveled at the toy’s movements ... and the music magically flowing from its inside.
The teacher found the piano-playing singing snowman stashed in a box in her shed. She dusted it off, replaced the batteries and revived it so it played and sang Christmas carols. She would take the snowman to school. She felt uplifted for she knew the boy would again listen with joy.
My wife remembers asking her mother, “Mom, why are you giving me this ring now?” Her mother cherished that ring and answered, “Because it gives me pleasure to see you enjoy it.”
And so, through the years her mother continued giving her other precious treasures, from pendants to necklaces and more rings. My wife still wears many of them.
Our Kiwanis Club is one branch of a 550,000 worldwide volunteer organization dedicated to helping children. At our Saturday morning meetings Chef Bill would do breakfast for us. His wife did it for another Kiwanis Club. Then, because of COVID-19, our meetings went virtual. The couple lost their business.
But the two bounced back with help from many Kiwanians. Members began giving Bill and his wife support by buying dinners from the two of them. They would pick up the meals at a church parking lot on Friday afternoons.
On one blistering cold and snowy day, Kiwanian cars began pulling out of the lot. Each with dinners for that night. As I drove out, I looked back at Chef Bill’s table. There was only one bag of home baked brownies left. I felt an undefinable ping of satisfaction.
Why am I sharing vignettes about a piano-playing singing snowman, a mother giving her cherished possessions and Kiwanians supporting Chef
Bill? Was each instance just a case of a good deed and nothing more? Or was there something deeper than that?
In the past I have associated “giving” mostly with writing checks or using credit cards to donate to worthy causes. I had never seriously considered to what extent we can be affected by giving — until the COVID-19 crisis.
Health care workers changed my thinking. Even while they were risking their own lives, many spoke of the good feeling they derived from helping others. That’s when I started seeing “giving” from a new perspective. And doing research on it.
Many studies have been done on the positive aspects of giving for givers. The giving could take various forms, such as providing financial assistance. Or it could be through providing people with daily sustenance. (These days across the country families wait online for basic foods.)
One could give by work
ing in soup kitchens, homeless centers and playing Santa at a community gathering. Or reading to children in less affluent communities. Of course, receivers benefit in such situations. But the return to the givers could be even more profound.
One study indicates giving is good for our health. That it improves the wellbeing of individuals with chronic illnesses. Another study concluded that when one person behaves generously, it inspires observers to behave generously also.
A wide range of research also shows that giving is good for our longevity. One report found that elderly volunteers were “44 percent less likely to die over a fiveyear period” following their voluntary activities. Another report suggested giving helps decrease stress.
It has also been reported that giving has been linked to the release of oxytocin, a hormone that creates feeling of warmth and euphoria. One article stated that “it may help us build stron
ger social connections.”
The data on the positives of giving for both the giver and receiver are abundant. Moreover, quotes on giving abound, from Mother Teresa who said, “Give until it hurts” to Nobel Peace Prize recipient Muhammad Yunus’s “Giving back is as good for you as it is for those you are helping” to Winston Churchill’s “We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.”
So, I leave it to you to decide as to who gets more from giving? The giver or the receiver? It’s really a personal thing. I don’t know how Chef Bill feels every Friday night as the receiver. I know the exhilaration I experienced the evening I looked back, saw only the bag of brownies, and felt that ping of satisfaction.