Day 31 ❦ Embrace our humanness.

Day 31

The Gift:

My giving notebook

I knew that I was going to have to write about this day for years. When I began this exercise I found the cutest little notebook whose cover in a black and white with yellow sepia tones pictured a smiling little girl dressed in a happy yellow flowered sun dress holding a daisy that was larger than her. It was perfect - giving larger than life, happiness and hope all bundled up in one little book.

The first page begins...”To Serve, Create and Bring Joy!” On the left hand side of each page is a date, month and day of the month,  followed by a description of the gift that I gave and a few notes about any observations, gifts received, the pieces of the story that I would write about later and any feelings that I had about that particular giving experience. I wanted it to be easy to record and then later transfer into the journal that you are reading now.

The note book itself is 4 inches by 6 inches, each page holds between 3 - 5 gifting experiences and filled with one great story after another. Despite its size, there is enough room in the notebook for me to use it for the second cycle of giving that I am conducting now and in fact, I could consider 5 or 6 more cycles of 100 days of giving and still have plenty of room to record everything I need to remember each day’s experience. That is except for today’s giving experience...

Today, Day 31 of the first 100 Days of Giving is blank. And not blank as in I forgot to write down what happened, blank as in I just didn't give anything today. I didn't forget to give, I didn't forget to write down the giving experience. I just didn't give anything today.

Knowing that I was planning on writing about my entire experience, I wrestled with just rolling day 32 into this day and shifting all of the subsequent days, but that didn't feel right. I thought about writing something philosophical like I gave of myself somewhere, but I didn't  I thought about staring all over since I hadn't really had 100 consecutive days of giving...but then I realized that we are all human and despite the challenges and standards that we set for ourselves, it is okay to recognize that we are all human and need a day off.

When I began this exercise 30 days ago, I was at an all-time low and was looking for something to kick-start me back into the human race. I needed something to move me outside of myself and I needed to be open to others’ needs instead of focusing on my own. To beat myself up for missing a day would defeat all that had been accomplished and I was unwilling to diminish all of the great things that had happened in the past 30 days. Intentionally giving, focusing on others, being open to interacting with people in new ways has added a dimension to my life that I not only appreciate and love, but that gives me something to look forward to each day. Today it just wasn't there and I needed to give into that. Period.

Now, the challenge is that just because I gave in today...will that make it easier to give in tomorrow? Or the next day? So now I know what I need to do. I need to intentionally add one day off each month when I can intentionally take the day off. God rested on the 7th day, surely it is okay for me to rest on the 30th day. So Be It. That is what I am going to do. Today...I rested.

❦ Embrace our humanness.

Day 29 ❦ Value devoid of judgement provides many giving opportunities.

Day 29

The Gift: A trivet holder

After influencing world peace yesterday, any gift I give today will seem mundane. And so in an effort to take the value judgement out of the giving, perhaps an ordinary day of giving is just what I need. Today’s simple gift is a cute palm decorated trivet holder that I purchased many weeks ago because I liked the way it looked, but never found a suitable purpose for. This item has been sitting in the stacks of stuff in my office waiting to be processed, dispatched, completed or thrown away.

Looking around my office trying to decide what to give today - the trivet presented itself not only as a gift but with a recipient attached to it.  It was very odd to look at the trivet holder purchased so many weeks ago that had my name on it - suddenly change to a gift that had someone else’s name on it - in fact, so obviously with someone else’s name on it. Usually if I looked at a recent purchase which no longer had my name on it - I would have simply returned it. I am the queen of returns and really get satisfaction out of returning something that I am willing to admit was just an impulse purchase with little lasting value. This is a new phenomenon, however.

Several years ago, I would have simply packaged up an impulse purchase in a box and then sold it later at a yard sale for one-hundredth the original purchase price. It always made me feel kind of bad to do that, but I told myself that I was embarrassed to return something. In fact, returning something was like admitting I had done something wrong, I had made a bad decision - so once I learned to take the value judgement off of the “wrong” of returning items - I began to revel in the concept that not only was it okay to change my mind, but I could also get my money back when I did change my mind. Well, I was probably in the phase of deciding to return this cute trivet holder when I looked at it with new eyes and realized that it would be a perfect giving opportunity for my oldest daughter, who had also though it to be very cute. Viola, giving complete. She appreciated the gift and in her appreciation erased any value judgement that I may have had held.

❦ Value devoid of judgement provides many giving opportunities.

Day 28 ❦ A simple gift can influence world peace

Day 28

The Gift: Three Deecha Dolls

Deecha Doll (Dee-cha)
A child's imagination takes shape...
...outside the lines.

Deecha Dolls were first introduced to me in the fall of 2002. Created by a woman in Wisconsin, they are soft cuddly creatures that resemble children’s depictions and drawings of themselves and their favorite animals. My Rotary Group Study Exchange team used them to make connections between Minnesota/Wisconsin and Ghana school children. Just before we left in the spring of 2003, several of us took the Deecha Dolls into third, fourth and fifth grade classrooms around the state and asked school children to tell the Deecha Dolls stories of their lives and to write those stories for the Deechas to pass along to children in Ghana. I have some spectacular pictures of third graders holding the Deechas in their laps while they read the stories of their lives to the stuffed creatures.

We took the hundreds of stories with the Deechas to Ghana and shared the stories and Deechas. The Ghanian school children then wrote their own stories for us to bring back and share with the students here. All of the stories are moving and this exercise really opened my eyes to the ease of solving world tensions. I have several Deecha Dolls left from the experience that I use when I do public speaking engagements about my experience.

This afternoon, my daughter Shannon invited Julia (the girl from yesterday’s story) to come over and play. After a while there were several little girls running all over the yard, laughing, screaming, running and playing. Watching Julia and the other kids was very emotional. I decided that I wanted them to remember this closeness and bonding and when they came back inside - I gave all of the girls playing in my yard a Deecha and asked them to share the story of this day with the Deecha as a witness to happiness and an oracle for peace.

❦ A simple gift can influence world peace