On Generosity and Praise

"Generous" derives from the Middle French word meaning "of noble birth."  And "gene-" means "give birth, beget."  So, being generous doesn't mean just give a lot of something, though providing a lot of money to someone could certainly be helpful in begetting lots of things.  It can also mean that you are helping someone become more alive.  That's pretty noble.  

Being generous could mean giving a thoughtfully individual gift, or it could be a subscription to a magazine or newspaper (which could generate a number of ideas and recipes, etc.), or it could mean helping someone "give birth" to an understanding of how important they are themselves.  

I love Amy Krouse Rosenthal's generous description of her husband Jason in Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. 

I love how this list develops from public to private.  I like how it's about how she admires her husband is by himself and how she loves how he is with her.  It's praise, but it's not the normal smothering generalities with which most people praise others.

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(update)  Laurie Santos, Yale professor of psychology, and teacher of "The Science of Well-Being," points out that generosity can make us happy.  

Self-care is great, if you're doing it the right way.  I'm all for improving your happiness.  That's what the whole class is about.  The problem is just how far.

We assume that self-care looks like a nice bubble bath -- or even hedonistic pursuits, selfish pursuits.  But the data suggests that the right way to treat ourselves would be to do nice things for other people.  We actually get more out of being more open and more social and more other-oriented than spending money on ourselves.  It's a bigger increase to your happiness.

She says, "I'm a big fan of surprise presents.  Everyone knows they're going to get presents on their birthday, but people don't expect a random, tiny gift and a gratitude letter out of the blue.  It's easy to underestimate how powerful that can be to our relationships and how nice that is to get."

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Austin Kleon notes that Alan Jacobs prefers to be around people who are generous and kind rather than "like minded":

You know what it’s like to be around people who share your core convictions… and yet you can’t stand to be around them. In one sense, they’re your “in” group, in another sense, it’s like, “When can I leave this party?” It can be stultifying. And it closes you off to spend all your time around people who may be like-minded, but whose spirit is unhealthy. They’re just not fun people to be around.

I started thinking about the fact that back when Twitter was more or less inhabitable by human beings (some years ago), I met a number of people on Twitter, including [you], and then at one point I decided it was just getting too poisonous, but I didn’t want to lose all those friends, so I made a private Twitter account.

There’s about 100 people there. When I was deciding who do I want to be talking with on social media, I realized it wasn’t necessarily the people who agreed with me about all of my religious beliefs or political beliefs. What I wanted was people who were generous. And kind. And caring. And thoughtful. So that when I said something, they would think about it, rather than just simply react.

That’s how I chose my company on social media. I chose to be around people whose disposition and whose character I found trustworthy. So that when I’m with them, I feel good about being in their presence. And I don’t always feel good about being in the presence of people who might, you know, if you made a list of 100 core beliefs, they might line up more, but they’re just not people I want to spend much time with.

I really think that matters. If you trust in the character and the generosity of people, one of the things you can do is you can take risks in your thinking a little bit. You can say, “Hey, I’m not sure about this, let me try this idea out on you.” You can count on them giving you an honest but also charitable response. If you can find a body of people like that… you’re incredibly blessed. It’s a fantastic thing to have. Not everybody has that. When you do have it, it not only makes you a happier person, I think it makes you a better thinker, as well.