Want to fix the economy?
Next time you buy coffee, purchase a cup for the person behind you. Or as you grind your way through the morning commute, pick up the tollbooth charge for the driver behind you, draped over his steering wheel and ranting at the long delay.
You've heard that famous Gandhian quote about being the change, well these are good measures to start with, packing more punch than you might imagine.
This approach to life starts with the following premise: What exactly did I (or you) do to deserve to be alive? If you can process that question and come out thinking it was a gift that you can't ever pay back, then beginning a life of greater giving is the only logical and remotely reciprocal way to go. If the most valuable thing you have isn't anything you earned, why be stingy with all the lesser stuff. You can start that practice of greater generosity with greater gratitude. And where better to start than with your mother, but don't stop there. Family, friends and the final frontier, strangers, are all worthy subjects.
Let's review what ails us. Our financial system nearly collapsed a few years ago. We propped it back up with what was left of our communal resources, and a little scotch tape here and there to correct the systems shortcomings. And now we find ourselves with a recovery so anemic only the wealthy can feel it. There has to be a better way.
Barter is a good way to survive a lousy economy. I can fix toilets; you can clean carburetors. Care to dance?
Learning to function in something like a "gift economy" is far more subversive, though, and worth thinking about.
A couple of years ago, in the teeth of the near economic collapse, the Steamin' Bean in Blue Springs, Missouri got caught up in the gift economy. A woman picking up coffee through the drive-through window decided to buy another cup, anonymously, for the person in the car behind her. The chain went on for close to 1,000 customers. That happened because of the viral affect of generosity.
As Steamin' Bean owner Garin Bledsoe explained in a UPI.com report on July 15, 2009: "It's hard times, but people are wanting to be part of something, knowing their 5 cents, their dollar, goes to a greater good."
The literature about the gift economy is rich. Remember those anthropology classes about the potlatch? Primitive societies far and wide used "gifts" as a means of creating cohesion and connection, all the better to survive the hardships of living off the land and the threat of other less-than-friendly tribes. This practice, in various forms, was quite widespread and predates out modern invention of currency. As history goes, this era of capital, the stuff we carry in our wallets and pocket books, is a blindingly new invention. How's it working out for you? Bet you're like the vast majority of the world. No matter how much you have, there's never enough.
Here's something to think about. Were these pre-modern habits of "gifting" purely survival techniques? Modern man may be less inclined to this sort of basic gifting, sharing and reciprocity. But we're good at studying things and the research keeps coming in that giving feels good. Really good.
What exactly happens when you buy that cup of coffee for the person behind you?
You get some good stuff happening in your body. In the brain actually, according to a number of recent medical studies that have identified a neural kick from being generous. Dacher Keltner, author of Born to Be Good, summarizes his own work as well as other recent research in this field in this article in Greater Good magazine.
But really, do we need science to tell us this? Raise your hand if the last time you did something nice for someone -- something not out of habit, but a truly spontaneous act of generosity with no expected payoff -- you felt better than good. You actually felt sort of changed, like some kind of shift from a scarcity mentality to a more abundant sense of yourself and life. Okay, I'm projecting here. But you get the point.
I've been researching activities that might fall under a broad heading of the "gift economy." This is in service to an eventual book about CharityFocus.org, a non-profit that has over the past decade served as a kind of incubator of gift economy projects.
One of the basic truths about activities as seemingly trivial as buying coffee for the person behind you or opening doors for others is that they are not trivial at all. If you buy the proposition that changing the world for the better starts with yourself, these small acts of generosity, when done with full intention do something quite powerful. They switch your world from a "me" orientation to a "we" orientation. That enlarged and connected sense of self can truly alter everything, from the way you think to the way you act.
The first time I encountered this approach was in writing a small article about CharityFocus.org for The Christian Science Monitor, when I was that newspaper's San Francisco bureau chief. And I remember as clear as a ringing bell, the dawning recognition that generosity was not about fixing some external problem. It was about me. About creating an internal shift, about establishing a different base of thinking.
Lewis Hyde wrote a book called The Gift in 1983. It is both brilliant and utterly resistant to summarizing. But it delves into questions about the worth of creative arts, and the somewhat existential question of how artists can possibly reconcile their "gift" to the commoditization tendencies of the market economy. The book is really a musing about notions of value, reciprocity, and the links and disconnects between the modern economic landscape and the "gift economies" of older cultures. It is mentioned here to suggest that the notion of a gift economy is not a leftist alternative to capitalism. The fact is that we are probably all wired, both physiologically and socially, to seek cooperation and collaboration despite an educational system and social context that works from cradle to grave to inculcate in us a zero-sum view of the world. Resources are finite, life is short, get what you can -- and if you have a little excess, perhaps write a check to your favorite charity.
In my book research, I read literally dozens of testimonials each and every day from people who have discovered in the smallest act of generosity a very large sense of joy. And a majority decides to "pay it forward" in some way. And so these acts never stand-alone. They reverberate inwardly and replicate outwardly.
So buy that cup of coffee for the person behind you. You'll feel great. You have science behind you. But you won't really need that affirmation. The thing you'll notice the most is what happens inside.
And make no mistake, the economy, as you have known it will never be the same.
The author posits without proof that it makes the participants feel good. But, in the world outside their own minds, here is what is accomplished:
The first person gives a random gift to someone probably much like themselves, i.e. someone who can already afford a coffee. A thousand people accept the gift in turn, but then expend what they would have spent anyway to pay for the next gift. Finally, the last person accepts the gift and does not "pass it on".
End result: One person receives a coffee gift they could afford anyway. But a thousand people mistakenly "feel good", as if they had accomplished something.
"Want to fix the economy? [...deceptive content...] And make no mistake, the economy, as you have known it will never be the same. "
Well, in your head, maybe. The real world will continue as before. The powerful will continue to exploit everyone else.
The lessons of this article are clear:
1. Blame yourself and your friends for the tragic results of our economic system. If only you were more generous, things would get better.
2. Don't even think about how the system works, or what is wrong with it.
3. Always act as an isolated individual. Never, ever consider joining forces with your friends and neighbors to multiply your power to effect real change.
This article is one of a class of similar ones found often in the "Impact" section of HP.
People today are feeling disenfranchised, disempowered, and hopeless in a system that seems to work only for a very few. Our huge, lumbering, dying institutions have become part of this system, and if we’re looking only to them for salvation, we will continue to feel more angry, hopeless, and disempowered.
The above article suggests that each individual does have the power to make the world at least a little bit better - and a critical mass of such acts can have major impact. (The Margaret Mead quote: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”) You, me, or even Obama may not be able to do much as lone individuals, but as we work together, the effect goes up exponentially.
Don’t lose hope!
You see Gandhi understood that he was up against the British Empire. Though he would have approved of giving he never would have mistaken it for meaningful change.
Either boycott or refuse to participate within the system - that's what causes change.
At worst, it makes us feel even more responsible for problems outside of our control.
I'm all for random acts of kindness.
But when a family can't feed their own children, how can they realistically be expected
to take on more reponsibilities???
Welcome to the New Economy.
300 million citizens doing each other's laundry.
Also like the comment about pooling resources, which doesn't seem at odds with the article from my vantage point.
Glen Beck, love him or hate him, is also a good example of this disconnect. He states very explicitly that he gives a large portion of his pay to charity; to be honest I don't believe him, but that's beside the point. His position is that a voluntary contribution (which goes only toward causes he approves of -- that's one of the major problems with this attitude, but not the one I'm focusing on now) is somehow more morally justified, indeed more inherently good, than a service provided by pooling funds through taxation. Efficiency argues against this idea, as does a sense of basic fairness and revulsion at the tyranny of the majority: those who need economic help are precisely those who lack the voice to make their need known clearly and effectively.
The cause of freedom is not served by limiting all public assistance to that given voluntarily. For each comfortable soul happier in his charity and his freedom to choose who gets his help there are a multitude falling farther behind and losing the opportunity to help themselves through political and social organizing.
This can be a trap. If desperate and depressed people conclude: Nothing.... This question gives them a reason and permission to end their lives. The way they will help society and the world is to remove the burden of their lives from it.
On the other hand: It's not always given to us to know what we have done. God's greatest gift is to allow a person that knowledge during their lifetime. There are the small, good deeds that we do... a gift or just a kind word.... caring and helping someone pick up dropped groceries, etc.
However.... the really, truly important thing that you do... possibly the real reason for your existance.... is likely to be something unintentional and something of which you are unaware. It may not come to fruition for a century and will involve the actions, intended or otherwise, by countless others.
This is how you posit that no one's life is undeserved or useless. It is simply not given to us to know that purpose.
I think my most ardent prayer is that when I'm dying, I may be permitted to see what that event was and what the ultimate outcome will be.
If I can barely afford the cup of coffee (which will be my only one all day) or if I can barely afford that toll to get me to work, then paying for the guy behind me is not really an option. If I pay the toll for the guy behind me, I have no way to get home. It sounds greedy... but unless we are responsible for ourselves first, we risk ending up not being able to help anyone.... and needing help ourselves.
2.
And if the unexpected grace comes with the smiling remark, "Pass it on when you can," do you see the money in your pocket differently?
However, the opposite can happen and you can leave yourself in dire straits, which may, in turn, leave someone who depends upon you in dire straits.
I always remember my mother saying that during the Depression her mother would feed anyone who came along. Unfortunately, it often meant that her own children went hungry, because by the time they got home from school, there'd be nothing left, because someone had stopped by during the day who needed it more. That meant that rather than getting breakfast, which never was much, lunch (there was no such thing), and dinner..... That very small breakfast was all she and her brother had. It was also all her mother had as well, and her mother was often sick, simply due to working too hard on too little food.
It's a definite conundrum.... deny those who depend upon you, to help someone you don't know, or turn the stranger away, to make sure your kids have dinner.
Now if you are 6th or 7th beneficiary of the good deed.... that's great... but those who are dependent upon you, are not in that line.... and, like I said..... you place yourself in risk of needing assistance.