Giving til it hurts

Where can I sign up for the study? I promise to be generous.

Let me explain. Psychologists released a study last summer where they gave 200 people from around the globe $10,000 to use as they wish with no stipulations other than reporting how they spent the money. The participants were drawn from three low-income countries (Indonesia, Brazil, and Kenya) and four high-income countries (Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, and the United States) and spent on average more than $6,400 on purchases that benefited others.

Yes, yes, please sign me up.

I’ll take care of everyone. You can trust me. I won’t steer you wrong.

Oh, I’m joking, but I find the findings to be quite interesting. Of that $6,400 total, nearly $1,700 went to donations to charity, suggesting that humans exhibit remarkable generosity. Diving in deeper, $3,678 went to people outside their immediate household, and $2,163 went to strangers, acquaintances and donations to organizations.

We’re writing this month On the Heart of the Matter on problem-solving and I write more about the generosity of strangers in my piece, One good deed deserves another. I’ve long been fascinated why one person will avoid you and another will give you the shirt off his or her back. I suspect my interest goes back to sitting in a church pew one Sunday as a young kid bored and not really getting much out the service, until the preacher started talking about the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke chapter 10).

In the story, Jesus tells the story of how a priest, Levite, and Samaritan (the Jews-hated enemy) all pass an injured Jewish traveler. The Samaritan is the only one who stops and cares for him, bandaging him and taking him to an inn, where he pays for his care. Jesus finishes the story by saying, “Go and do likewise.”

But compassion can still be hard to find.

I’m not sure if there is a gene for generosity and caring or if it’s a case of upbringing or life experiences, but I can make you one promise: If the researchers want to do Round Two of the study or if Bill Gates or Warren Buffet want to give me some of their vast fortunes, I promise to give freely to lots of different organizations and great causes.

Heck, I’ll even give to my regular readers. Now doesn’t that make you want to become an avid reader and follower of Writing from the Heart with Brian, right?

I promise that I’ll be altruistic! I even pinky swear!