The other night my friend texted me asking if I could help her fix her thesis for a religion paper. I laced up my sea-foam green running shoes, donned my neon-green jacket, tucked my phone into the back pocket of my running shorts, and went out into the steady, cold drizzle. The run was exhilarating, and I was thankful for the excuse to take it.
It's a short run to her place and her thesis didn't take long to fix, but I was there for almost two hours. Just talking. Much of it was a talk I'd been needing to have.
As I was leaving, my friend made the comment that she felt like she, in most relationships, takes more than she gives.
"What do you mean?" I asked her, utterly bewildered at the audacity of such a statement. In my mind, I would forever be in her debt for all that she had given me.
True, I often read over and corrected her papers, I walk her to classes, and I try to be a listening ear.
But with each of these, I realized, she had not been taking, but giving. And what she had given me was the the chance to give back.
The truth is, when we talk about our struggles, we are not taking time from someone, but giving them perspective for their own trials as well as the chance to commiserate with their own.
When we ask a friend for help, we are not just taking time from their busy schedules; we are giving them the validation that they are needed and that they have something to offer us.
When we accept a gift or an offering, we are not just taking of what we are given; we are giving to others a way for them to display their love for us.
When we take, we are giving others the opportunity to grow, to serve, to love, and, ultimately, to give.
And so, in a sense, we can really never take more than we give: when we take we are really just giving to someone else the opportunity to give back--an opportunity which they take whole-heartedly, happily, gratefully, knowing that they can never truly repay the wonderful gift that is given them in return. The gift of perspective, love, and friendship.
So to answer my friend, you cannot take more than you give. Because that is just called giving.
Candidly,
Cookie
