The Road To Hell

Our intentions carry us a long way. If all we do day-in and day-out is bitch about how much life sucks, and don't take any action to resolve it then guess what your having for breakfast the next day? A big order of suck-ass leftovers.

~Matt Westgate

I grew up with the precept: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." And when I read the above quote, that's exactly what came into my mind. And, yesterday, it occured to me that it's exactly where I am with our current project. Not in those exact words, but in the spirit of the quote.

For example: I have been wiffle-waffling and pussy-footing all around this issue of giving and receiving, making grand statements to myself of what I'm planning to give and then, at the last minute, changing my mind, or losing my confidence, or flat out forgetting.

Here's my "intention" for this project: I would like to be "She From Who All Blessings Flow." In my dreams, I wander the earth like a Wizard from Earthsea mending the broken, finding the lost, and healing the sick. In my office, I have stacks of books that I talk about giving away. I have plans to teach Reiki and share what I know about animal communication and healing.

And so far: all of the above has been just a lot of bla bla bla. While I'm not (recently) bitching too much about how life sucks, I have been doing quite a bit of grumbling to myself about how I'm not sure about "giving and receiving," that I have "issues," and how I don't know how to get "there" from "here." And, if only my life was somehow different, if only I could do "real" magic, if only this and if only that...

Holding that thought in mind: I walked into work yesterday and having said "Hello" to a fellow coworker, I took the time to really look at her, and really listen to her body language, to "give" her my full attention. Then I asked her, "So, what do you need?" After the usual banter about more money... to win the lottery... etc... she said that what she really needed was someone to do her taxes for her, and did I know anyone. Simple, nothing complicated, just a basic tax form.

And I thought to myself... here's my opportunity to put my money where my mouth is. So, I said, "I'll do it for you. We can sit down together, it won't be very hard. Just get the forms from the library and we'll get it done." She offered to pay me, and I said "Hell no. It's really easy. No big deal."

The next person I talked to was a coworker who is always pretending to be happy to see me, when, in reality, he's just full of himself and couldn't care less if I live or die. We have a sort of running joke that started one day when he was telling me how much he "loved" me, and I just wasn't believing it, sounded like just a lot of bla bla bla to me... and I wasn't in the mood for phony baloney conversation, so I said, "You don't love me. If I quit my job - if I died tomorrow, you wouldn't even notice that I wasn't here. Months - even years would go by and you'd never mention my name even one time." So, now whenever he sees me, we joke about how he really does care whether or not I live or die, and I'm still not buying it.

Anyway.. he was admiring my jacket and asked me if I'd "will" it to him. And I said, "You really like it? That much? Ok. You can have it." And I took the jacket off and gave it to him. It turns out that the jacket didn't fit, and so he gave it back to me... but I have to tell you how freeing it felt to just give him the shirt off my back. I felt unbelievably light when I did it!

So, these are my "stories of giving" from yesterday. How about you? Do you have stories of giving?