Reciprocity

At one point in my speaking career I was enchanted with the word “reciprocity”. I had read the statement, “You can only get out of life what you put into it.” You can string this on and on, “You’ve got to love to be loved.” You can only get out of a job what you put into it.”  You can apply it to marriage, faith, religion, belonging to a society, an association; just about anything in your life and still we find people all around us every day who are trying to get around that law of reciprocity.  They are known by many names, many of which I cannot mention in this newsletter. Let’s just call them “takers.”  There are givers and takers. And there are also winners and losers in this world and the biggest losers are generally just the takers it seems to me.  Some of the kindest and most generous people I have ever met are winners in the field of finances. And some will look at others’ generosity and say, “If I had his money then I could afford to be generous too.” What about saying, “If I were as generous as he is then I would have his money too.”  If you understand the secret of giving to get and not giving to get then this message probably makes a lot of sense to you but to many it will seem like hogwash.  A man we called Tremendous Jones once finally explained it to me until I caught it.  He used to say, “Give to get. Give to get. But don’t give just to get, learn to give for the pure joy of giving and when you do then you will discover that the more you give the more you get.  Giving to get is just trading but giving for the joy of giving and then getting in return is what that law of reciprocity is all about.  Get it?  No? Then try it and give for the joy of giving expecting nothing in return.