A friend wanted me to help her do some projects. She kept telling me that she wanted to make sure I was comfortable helping her. ‘I want to make certain you agree to do only what you’re comfortable doing’, she said. I was puzzled at first. ‘Why does she keep saying that’, I wondered. Finally it hit me. She knew that someone who agrees to do something whole heartedly will be more likely to follow through. She was aware that a small job done joyfully will probably be done better than a large job done half heartedly. The idea of ‘selfish giver’ is alive and well here. A ‘selfish giver’ is someone who gives or does only as much as they are willing to, rather than saying they will do something and then not following through (because they never really wanted to do it in the first place).
