To Give is to Get

Every time something good has happened in the last year, I’ve selected a charity and set up a monthly donation. Our former Catholic Church, local food banks, BetheMatch.org have become monthly charities. If I see a gofundme that resonates, I donate. It could be 5, it could be 500. I give and give and I don’t think about the get, because the get is implicit with the give. That is what Alan Watts kept repeating over and over. You don’t have to worry about it, as soon as one force is exerted in the universe, you will get the equal opposite just like Newton said. I can only receive if I give. If you want to think it is selfish to give shit to people in order to get shit, fine, but we are all selfish. There’s no other way to be, all we have is self. It is in caring for the self we learn to care for others because our relationships with others will only ever be a reflection of our relationship with self.  There is a reason why we feel good after exercising or helping another human. We are biologically wired to keep ourselves going, and we receive rewards chemically from our body to keep doing these things. It’s supposed to be good, it’s supposed to feel good, and it’s supposed to be how shit is done. Give first, then get.

Every time I go to the grocery store, I buy more. I donate food and household goods. I was able to raise over a hundred pounds of food for the Preston and Steve campout for hunger by saving groceries for 6 weeks. I’m talking 10 bucks tops extra on my grocery bill. If I buy new things, I take time afterwards to go through my belongings to ensure I have donated anything I do not need.

You cannot get if you do not give.

You will only prove yourself right. If you say you are broke, you will be broke. If you give you say; I’ve got plenty. I have so much I can share. Then you prove yourself right. You will have plenty. You will have so much you can share. So you keep doing it.

When I feel sad that no one reads my poetry, my ego gets me smelling my farts and telling me I’ll never be a this or that or no one gives a shit about art, I go buy art. I buy someone’s chapbook. I comment in poetry communities. I share work.

Does anything happen overnight? No. This isn’t about getting what you are asking for. Immediately. It’s teaching yourself to ask in the first damn place. All it takes is asking for help. And actually believing it will happen. If you don’t believe it, if you don’t trust it, how in the hell could it? Have you ever genuinely surprised yourself? It’s impossible.

The easiest place to ask for help is when you see someone else ask for help, and you say I can help you. Who can help me? This process is constant. It’s up to you to learn the rules and apply them.

Dismiss me, call me crazy, try it and see if you can prove me wrong, you will always prove yourself right. Trust and seek? The entire world goes from not enough to “omg it’s not that fucking hard” (that’s what she said)

We only suffer because we say it is so.

I also saw this quote from Osho, and I think he’s dead on about being a giver, especially from his true perspective:

Before Osho was Osho, he was Bhagwan. Bhagwan and his followers came to the US to start their own society. A society founded on his teachings, love, collaboration, etc. first, they took over the neighboring town, then attempted to take over the county to be able to secure from a legislative perspective the right to live sovereign in Oregon