I “Gave Back” at the Office
I think I’m a pretty generous guy. I donate food to the local food bank. I donate my time and money to my VFW. I can’t pass a Salvation Army bell ringer without putting at least a buck in the bucket. Boy Scouts selling popcorn? Send them to my house. And, for those of us who are old enough to remember what it was like to not be afraid of salmonella – having slightly soggy $2 band hoagies for dinner!
Now I’m not Bill Gates. I have limited means but I try to do my part, and I encourage everyone to do whatever they can to help their fellow man. I think charity is one of mankind’s finest traits.
But there’s a term that has come into vogue that’s used to describe charity. And it really grinds my agates when I see or hear it. The expression “giving back” offends me in several ways:
It implies that in order to “give back” you must have taken something to begin with.
It also implies the greed of the giver. Apparently, you took too much, and much more than you needed. In fact, you took so much that you need to return some.
It doesn’t describe charity at all. In a sense it demeans charity for the reasons above. Charity comes from the heart, not out of guilt as “giving back” implies.
And I’m not the only one who has their hackles raised by the term:
The Huffington Post: “Overused, misunderstood and mildly condescending, this phrase turns the idea of helping each other into a way to celebrate one's superiority for acting like the basic, decent human beings we're supposed to be.”
The American Enterprise Institute, opinion by Mark Perry on a University of Michigan-Flint giving program: “Through UM-Flint’s ‘Giving Back’ campaign, our alumni are being encouraged to ‘give back to our campus’ through volunteering and philanthropy... …The underlying premise of encouraging anybody – successful business people or UM alumni – to ‘give back’ is objectionable… …because it implies that those alumni have previously ‘taken something’ from our campus or from society that now needs to be returned or given back – like stolen property!”
Bob Burg, Inc. Magazine: “The way the term ‘giving back’ is generally used is that you've made a lot of money in business off the backs of other people… …but that you did it through taking from other[s] first. And now that you've taken, you feel like you ‘owe’ something and feel the need to ‘give back’…”
So, this holiday season, give what you can to worthy organizations that help others, be it with your time volunteering or in cash or goods. Do it because you want to help others, not because you feel an obligation because of what you have, but because of what’s in your heart.
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Oat Bran Kills!1
We’ve heard it repeated many times over the years: red wine in moderation is good for you. Mental health professionals say so. Even the Mayo Clinic says so. The University Health News says that “Wine can protect your brain from the effects of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.”
In fact, the health benefit of wine is the reason I drink it!
So, it must have been a shock to the entire medical community (and wine lushes like me) that “Drinking just four small glasses of wine a week can raise the risk of developing dementia.”
Yeaaaaaaa science!
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Merry Christmas to All of God’s Creatures, Large and Small!
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20 or 30 years ago, Clark de Leon wrote a daily column for the Philadelphia Inquirer. “The Scene” was a lighthearted look at Philadelphia, and society in general. One of Clark’s periodic stories was titled “Oat Bran Kills”, which spoofed science’s never-ending onslaught on established norms. He envisioned that eventually science will determine that one of the healthiest foods, oat bran, is actually deadly. We see this all the time today where one week eggs are deemed good for you and the next weeks some study says that eggs are poison that must be avoided at all costs.