Generous 1

Generous
It hit me today that until now I have really defined being rich as a monetary thing.  Yet something else has also occurred to me today, that I had not thought about till now.  Very rare is the person that is rich in all things.
Certainly, someone may have heaps of brass and it is an aspiration of all.  There is no doubt in my mind, money can be a defense.  It definitely can protect against many lacks.  Yet someone may be incredibly rich financially, but incredibly poor in friends.  My thinking went this way because I heard someone saying how generosity made an incredible difference to the students at their school.  Grades improved tremendously when students knew they had people who believed in and cared for them.  Suddenly things mattered where once it was thought nothing really mattered.
This guy was asked what difference to him did it make being generous.  He was saying how he had had an incredible anger problem.  But generosity changed the way he thought.  He realized that his anger was all about me, mine and I (there is in my mine a time to be angry, but it is the exception and not the rule.  And if I am honest with myself often my anger is born of a perceived injury or injustice to me.)
He realized his anger often was a wounding of his ego.  “My stuff was stolen, they hurt me, I have been delt a blow.”  He saw his anger as basically a selfish act.  He felt he had to get out of what he called the circle.  The circle of me, myself, I.
He saw that generosity was putting another before oneself.  He saw that putting another first took his ego out of the equation, and that giving was putting another’s needs before his own.  He found that in the process of doing that his needs assumed their right dimensions and they were met.
As is always the case in such things, I reckon there is a balance, and my needs are legitimate.  Yet I cannot help but ask myself if in my case, the balance has been skewed.  If I have made life so much about me I have failed to consider others as I should.  I find it incredible how from the moment I wake up it is all about me.  What will I do today? So often my thought is not for another but for myself.
I could not believe it.  I looked at the word count and found it was over 700.  I have committed myself to between 400 and 600 words a time.  Someone recently said they found that long, and I thought maybe I should make it 300-500.  But I am not there yet.
So what I think I will do is this in two parts.  It is a subject that is important to me, and I have a feeling will become more important in the days ahead.