"Get Inspired": Why Giving Matters

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others?" - Martin Luther King Jr.

I am so passionate about this topic, "Giving". Most times I ask myself, "What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?"

How do you share your blessings? Do you enjoy them alone and forget your neighbour who is in need? The truth is whether we like it or not, we would always have the poor & less privileged in our midst.

Let us look at some of the importance of giving. Below, I have collated some quotes from various individuals, emphasizing the need to give.

• If you’re in the luckiest 1% of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99%.
• Nothing brings more happiness than trying to help the most vulnerable people in society. It is a goal and an essential part of my life - a kind of destiny.
•  Charity looks at the need and not at the cause.
• There is a natural law, a Divine law, that obliges you and me to relieve the suffering, the distressed and the destitute. Charity is a supreme virtue, and the great channel through which the mercy of God is passed on to mankind. It is the virtue that unites men and inspires their noblest efforts.
• The practice of charity will bind us...will bind all men in one great brotherhood.
• Pity the sorrows of a poor man, whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door.
•  Think of giving not only as a duty but as a privilege.

Sometimes we have a wrong conception of charity. Giving when you ''only' have more.  As Jack London rightly put it, "A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog". Other instances could be giving when you sin (that is giving out of guilt), giving someone so that you will get from him later in the future, etc. No, give just for giving sake and not expecting anything in return.

"Therefore, let us do all the good we can. By all the means we can. In all the ways we can. In all the places we can. At all the times we can. To all the people we can. As long as ever we can."

I can assure you that no one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.  There is joy in giving, sharing & showing love. :-)