Giving is the easiest way in the world to find happiness. Not just for gift recipients, but for you as the gift giver.
If you personally value the act of giving, you can find dozens, hundreds, of opportunities to make yourself happy every day.
And since, by definition, you’re expecting nothing in return for your gift, your success rate will be 100%.
That’s all pretty basic, so we’ll call that Giving 101.
Now, let’s go on to Giving 201…
By definition, a gift is something that we give to someone, without expecting payment.
If we’re truly giving, it means that we are not expecting the recipient to respond with money, thanks, good behavior, or even feelings of gratitude or indebtedness.
(If we are expecting some sort of response, then maybe we’re more trading than giving.)
So, let’s take the logic of our gift definition a little further…
If we don’t expect the gift recipient to respond with some form of ‘payment’ after receiving a gift, we certainly shouldn’t expect ‘payment’ prior to giving a gift, or as a pre-condition for giving the gift, right?
This is where Santa comes in. I’m going to use the world’s most famous gift-giver as both a good and bad example to illustrate this point.
First – Good Santa.
We’ve already said that, if truly giving, we would not expect to be repaid with thanks or even feelings of gratitude in response to giving a gift.
What greater illustration of that is there than when parents give Santa all the credit for the Christmas gifts that they give their children? That’s really giving!
Next – Bad Santa.
We’ve also said that, if truly giving, we would not expect to be repaid in ‘good behavior’ in response to a gift. Well, if we wouldn’t demand good behavior in response to giving a gift, why would we require good behavior as a precondition to giving a gift?
So when Santa says he’s making a list, checking it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty and nice, he’s telling the children that they have to earn Christmas gifts with good behavior. That’s not giving, Bad Santa!
What’s the take-away from Giving 201?
You can give to people who haven’t done anything to deserve a gift.
That’s truly giving.
Just think how many more potential gift recipients you have now. We just totally multiplied your opportunities to give – and get happiness!
That’s my gift to you today. No, don’t thank me, please!
Coming soon, Giving 301 – Forgiving
That is called altruism and I believe Ayn Rand exploded that notion long ago. People whom we give gifts to should be both worthy and thankful. That is called a win-win or value for value. Gift giving in the manner you speak of is called sacrifice. One party gains while another loses. I prefer to trade the value of my gift for the value of the person to which I’m giving.
Thank you for reading and commenting! I agree with you in not calling for sacrifice or any kind of duty to help others at your own expense. In keeping with the anarcho-capitalist view that the value of something is solely in the mind of the individual, my view is that if the individual values the act of voluntary giving, then giving is not a sacrifice. If I value giving, I always ‘win’ when giving. If my gift is of value to the recipient, then they also win.
I believe Kant’s perspective is embodied in every gift, in that the giver receives pleasure in exchange for the gift regardless of whether or not the receiver ever returns the favor.
In other words, the act of giving pleases the giver and drives giving. There is no act of giving that only benefits the receiver.
It would be a ‘sacrifice’ if the giver gave without tangible or intangible benefit(s) to him/herself.
Thanks, TheMikeyMcD, that adds additional support to the main point I’m attempting to convey in all three of my posts on giving – that giving is a simple, and almost foolproof, way to bring happiness to yourself in addition to the good you can do with your gifts.
I’m having trouble understanding how the act of giving in itself has value. For example how could I enjoy giving a gift to someone I consider evil? Should I take pleasure in helping sustain someone who is actively opposed to everything I understand to be right? As I see it, giving would be a valueless action by itself. It is the quality of the individuals that determines the value of this type of transaction. In short Kant was wrong.
I would never go down the path of saying you must value giving to all people at all times. However Kant may be right in the same way as free trade advocates who say all free trades are win-win because the involved parties would only trade if they felt they would be better off. In the same way, a person would not give unless they felt that giving gave them a benefit. So in that way Kant can say giving always confers a benefit to the giver, as evidenced by the fact that they gave.
Getting a ‘thanks’ back can let the giver know that the gift was acknowledged and appreciated.
It is communication feedback.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Garret! And you’re absolutely right that an honest ‘thank you’ adds more value all the way around.
Determine the consequences and expected net amount of good that can come from a decision about giving.
Giving for the sake of trying to be “nice” or “good” often tends to less beneficial. Whether short-sighted, misguided, or pious (and it doesn’t really matter), decisions centered around shallow altruism, feel-good sophistry can be lose-lose.
Decisions should be weighed on their expected outcome. This type of thinking can be labeled as utilitarianism or consequentialism.
I don’t think giving has to be over thought, with returns or benefits always calculated. Giving because you value giving seems likely to prove a net positive over time even if some individual exchanges go awry.