When we got gifts as kids, we thought we could do whatever we wanted to with them. It wasn’t until later on that we learned that gifts don’t come without strings attached.
At Christmas your grandma gave you $20, and if you went out and wasted it, or lost it, she was sad. Part of the art of writing thank you cards was in the ability to detail exactly what that gift was used for in your life. “Thank you for the $20, Nana, I used it to buy a mouse for my computer for schoolwork.”
That’s a great note, and it made Nana feel even better about her generosity, that her gift was good, and used for good.
Gifts, by definition, are free. And yet, not totally.
If you blow that $20, Nana is going to be upset.
You buy a bunch of candy or throw-away junk, you better get creative when you write that thank you card, and make something up meaningful, otherwise, look out!
When you receive a gift, there is a small transfer of power that happens. There is always some feeling of indebtedness that comes when you are the recipient.
This is why many in our culture want to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. They refuse gifts, so they can owe nothing to no one. They refuse gifts, so they can prove to themselves they are enough.
Gifts infringe on our freedoms, and threaten our ego.
Therefore, there are only two types of people: the ones who receive gifts gracefully, and the ones who don’t. We can call them the orphans and the bootstrappers.
The orphans’ mindset says everything we have is a gift, even the air we breathe. We are recipients of either a loving, Divine interest. In this mindset, everything we are and everything we possess comes built-in with responsibility, a duty, an honorable destiny to steward the gifts we receive in such a way that would please the Giver.
The bootstrappers mindset says everything we have we have earned, and since we have earned it, we have the right to do with it whatever we please. This view detaches responsibility, emasculating the purpose of gifts.
The bootstrappers seek to succeed by their own efforts, and then “pay it forward” and promote other bootstrappers on their own journeys of self-actualization. They rely on their own power and are therefore practical, firmly planted in the box of what is “possible”.
The orphans are the dreamers. They are courageous because they know the real reason they are successful is far bigger than their own ability. They seek to honor the gift and the Giver, and they seek to use their gifts to fill, beautify, and restore the community they live in, not because of a burden, a debt, or a duty, but because it is the very joy of life itself.
If we limit ourselves to our own bootstraps, our dreams will never come true, and we will never truly accept the biggest gifts of all, like life, genuine happiness, inner peace, real joy, hope, and a satisfaction that surpasses understanding.
And yet, in our hard-hearted, brash ways, if we refuse all gifts and claim sole ownership and responsibility for our success, there is a gift that will catch up to us, and prove our error.
It’s the gift that never ends, until it does.
As Gandalf said, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
No self-respecting bootstrapped can deny that time was a gift.