Generosity Day – and now, the fun part

Earlier this year I found myself wondering: what should I do for Generosity Day this year?  Meaning “I” or “me.”

In many ways, I asked the wrong question.  Of course I have an important role to play, but what I’ve discovered in the past few weeks is the beauty of something you give away: it doesn’t belong to me any more.  Generosity Day is out there in the world, it has touched peoples’ lives, and in this day and age that means that Generosity Day lives and is real and spreads because of all of you.

This year in particular a crack team of volunteers showed up and took things to a whole new level.  Their work and dedication has absolutely blown me away.  And each volunteer had a real story, a personal story, of what happened to them on Generosity Day last year or the year before, and each story was beautiful and profound.  That’s a Genii you can’t put back in a bottle.

There are too many people to thank individually, and too many people who would be left out from any list I could write.  The good news is, you all know who you are.  I thank each and every one of you for showing me what generosity can be, for fueling my optimism, for sharing your own fears and failures so I could share mine, and for deepening my own exploration of generosity which I know just beginning.

In case you missed it, the crew created this fun 55 second video that will bring a smile to your face, as will the beautiful comment from a reader of Brene Brown’s blog about her daughter’s story of buying ice cream for everyone at MacDonalds.  When I read a story like that I’m reminded how real this is – the joy, the way we touch others, what we teach our children, how we walk through the world.  This is important.  This is potentially transformational.  Thank you for being part of it.

Now get out there be generous today.

Try it, you’ll like it.