Generosity refers to the trait or virtue in an individual that encourages them to give away freely and abundantly while expecting nothing in return. It is about making your peace with the truth that we hold on to things and emotions, that we don’t really need.
Generosity is not only about being able to give away material things but to give away kindness, philanthropy, and good nature in expectations of no return too.
There are two big reasons why generosity is encouraged in human beings, it helps you grow as a person and makes you feel good, and the second being - it helps those around you, helps build harmony in the community you are a part of.
A lot of points have been put forward for the first part, giving away and generosity have a multitude of benefits for you. As proven scientifically, generosity as a trait has high links with contentment with overall quality of life and higher job satisfaction level. In a more spiritual context, being generous makes you feel a lot more lighter, being kind making you feel more whole and giving away materials can make you feel more in touch with yourself. Year after year, a piling number of studies are vouching for the benefits of generosity on both our physical and mental health. Generosity reduces stress, helps improve physical health, heighten one’s sense of purpose, and eases symptoms and helps cope with depression, it is also shown to increase one’s lifespan.
But to flip the coin, let’s explore how does adopting generosity in different facets of our life help others?
Generosity promotes a social connection and improves relationships.
When we give to others in any capacity, we welcome them to our life, not only make them feel closer to us but we too, feel closer to them. This is because being generous and kind has a dual effect - not only do they think highly of us as we have been kind to them, we also think positively of them as we have helped them (because why would we willingly help someone who we don’t think is a good person?). This process fosters a sense of community, a feeling of interconnectedness.
Imagine a situation - you have moved to a new city, and have rented out a new apartment in a building. Of course, since you are new you won’t know how to approach them, or even be nervous to do so. But what if your neighbour approaches you first? If your neighbour comes up to you and introduces themself, welcomes you to the place and tells you “feel free to contact me if you have any questions or need any help!”, you will immediately feel less stressed in your journey to adjust to this new place. In that one act of generosity, the neighbour has done the following-
Made you feel comfortable in an alien city
Made you feel welcome to an entirely new environment
Made sure you don’t feel alone and have someone reliable to approach if you need
Removed the awkwardness you would have otherwise felt, and made you feel part of the community
They were kind to you
Now not only you would feel comfortable approaching them for help, but they would also feel comfortable approaching you if there is something you can help them with.
In short, they have managed to form a connection with you, while also welcoming you to the new community you are now a part of - quite possibly also making them feel better about themself in return too (as they should!).
Generosity is an excellent way to show appreciation to others.
Generosity is the easiest way to show appreciation. Wondering how? Imagine yourself in this situation - you are in a pickle, you find yourself facing a problem you don’t know how to get yourself out of and you realise you need help. So you seek out the help you need, you ask around in your friend circle and extended social circle if someone is willing to help you. And someone does agree to help you. Say a friend decides to go out of their way to help you, and you have finally resolved the situation with their help. If they are someone who is willing to help you even if it inconveniences them, chances are they are someone who expects nothing in return and are a very kind individual. In fact, they might not even let you compensate them for their trouble. How can you show them that you appreciate their help and kindness? Generosity.
Remember, generosity is not just giving away material things, generosity also manifests itself in behaviour. Try to be kind to them in whichever way you can - a simple hi or a greeting whenever you meet them, a smile of acknowledgement when you come across them, or even simply being respectful in your behaviour towards them, or maybe returning the favour by going out of your way to help them whenever they need it! All of this will not cost you even a penny and yet you will succeed in showing them that you appreciate them.
Generosity contributes to the improvement of society.
Studies show that people who implement acts of generosity in their everyday life i.e high levels of generosity also tend to be the ones who are more actively engaged in community welfare projects and charitable organisations that work towards social development. This means when we are more generous, we also actively work towards the betterment of others and the society, we feel the drive to help others that may need it and all-around try to create a better environment for others. This ultimately leads to the betterment of society, and hence with little acts of generosity, you have helped influence the lives of everyone in your community.
Generosity begets Generosity
Generosity is contagious, it is scientifically proven! Studies show acts of generosity leave a ripple effect, inspiring multiple acts of generosity in their wake. If we take the previous two situations for example- when your neighbour approached you to make you feel welcome, I’m sure it would make you feel grateful. You would feel a need to return the kindness! You would want to extend the same generosity to them. Even in the second situation, if someone helped you out in the time of need, you would really appreciate and would want to help them out whenever they would need it as well right?
Every act of generosity inspires more generosity in return, within the person that act of generosity was directed towards. Surprisingly enough, it is not just the person that receives generosity that feels motivated to act generously as well. Simply witnessing an act of generosity encourages you to act generously as well. It may have something to do with the fact that a lot of human behaviour is guided by picking up social cues from those around us in any situation. It could also stem from social conformity. Regardless, generosity results in more generosity. This means, every time you act generously, you encourage others around you to act generously too. And when they act generously, others around them will act generously too. Every act of generosity simply serves to bring more good into the world. This is how your generosity will always rouse generosity in others.
Generosity helps keeps negative thoughts at bay
Most of us tend to have an inner “monologue”, or an inner “voice” that narrates our thoughts. Humans, in general, tend to be sceptical of their competencies and capacities and critical in the assessment of the self. Generosity helps challenge such thoughts. We associate generosity with “good” as it is a positive attribute. If we have engaged in positive behaviour, self-critical thoughts are unlikely to occur, and we are less likely to be unhappy with ourselves. How does this affect others? When we are less likely to be upset or insecure in ourselves, we are more likely to be pleasant with others. The happier we are within ourselves, we are also more likely to be encouraging towards others, treat those around us with kindness. We are also less likely to snap at others in irritation, rather we are more tolerant and patient with them. On the whole, we become more of a positive presence in the life of the people near and dear to us. Not only a positive presence but in some cases also positive influences. Our positivity might encourage those around us to be kind, generous and patient as well. Ultimately, your effect on others lives becomes a good one!
Generosity makes you a good parent
When you become a generous person, and welcome generosity into your household, you also, by default, become a better parent than you would have been as a non-generous person.
Raising children is a difficult task, and raising children well is an even more complex task. Children have a lot of needs while growing, and it also takes a great deal of patience and sensibility to guide them in the right direction. Generosity helps with a lot of those. As the saying goes, “charity begins at home”, the greatest benefit of generosity is to you as a parent. Extend generosity to your child, be kind to them, have patience when they can’t find the right way to express themselves to you, try not to berate them for their mistakes but instead try to understand why.
Children also learn awfully quickly from their parents and model their behaviour after their parents. So by treating your children with generosity, you are not only ensuring you establish a good bond and communication channel with them, but also help them grow into generous individuals themselves. This also means they would extend the same generosity to you and will feel gratitude towards you. In doing this, you are not only improving your family life and raising a child you are proud of, but you are also incorporating a good citizen into your community/ the society.
Generosity in the workplace
Generosity in the workplace is an important value. Many research studies and papers later, we have safely come to the conclusion the personality trait of generosity is important to maintain the kind of workplace environment that is conducive to growth and productivity.
It is important for the top executives and the HR personnel of a company to encourage generosity as a prerequisite to workplace behaviour. There are many benefits of doing so -
Increases workplace harmony - generous people are welcoming and approachable, and if every employee tries to adopt generosity as an essential part of their workplace behaviour, it would help maintain harmony between colleagues and different teams as well. Generosity also shows an inverse relationship with confrontational behaviour, which means there are fewer probable chances of conflict, and the energy taken to resolve these conflicts is instead redirected to having a more productive output.
It reduces toxic competition - People with high generosity realise that communal gain benefits each individual more than personal gain does, which leads to less unhealthy competition and more collaborative effort towards a common goal. It also creates a less combative and more relaxed environment in general.
It opens a healthy channel of communication - more or less a continuation of the previous point, when employees realise that collaboration is a better option, and they are not competing with their colleagues and that they don’t pose a threat to the growth of their career, they are no longer hesitant to share ideas more freely and communicate and coordinate with colleagues and other teams more easily. This collectively helps a healthy flow of communication throughout the workspace.
Invested employees - if a company aims one of its goals to be more generous, and employees too feel the same way (which is more likely than you might assume!), they would feel like their goals and the company/organisation’s goals align with each other, which would also make them more like to adjust their other goals to align with the other goals of the company as well, for cohesion. In this process, an employee becomes more invested in the company and its interests as well, which improves overall employee performance.
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