What Do I Want To Give The World?
I want to give back to the world.
One of my greatest desires is to give something of value to the world. Whether it’s entertainment in the fiction that I write, insight from this blog, lessons in medieval rapier combat, or a pun to make someone crack a smile, I want to be a giver.
One of the risks of this, though, is focusing more on giving than receiving anything in return. When in the course of day-to-day life one needs to earn a living, this can present a particular challenge.
I am working on reconciling this idea. How? By seeing and acknowledging the difference between being a giver and taker.
This has been covered both in Positivity and Pathwalking this week, but to reiterate, giver’s give from a place of abundance, with no real expectation of anything in return. Takers may give from time to time, but it is with a demand for something in return.
That something can take a bunch of different forms. Money, favors, praise, etc. A giver does what they do to assist, help, and often empower. A taker does what they do to curry favor, gain for themselves, and usually in order to disempower.
Yes, I want to get paid to be a writer. My books are not available on Amazon for free. This in part because this is how I want to cross the bridges between writing for fun and writing for a living. Writing for a living is still fun for me, but I’d like to earn money doing it.
I have studied some ways with which I could monetize this blog. Yeah, I would really like to make some money writing these posts. But it is more important to me to maintain my principles and be a giver.
To give is not to sacrifice.
I think this is one of the issues I have to work with. I’m aware of a lot of artist types like myself that hold onto several beliefs about money and integrity.
That’s one issue. The other is how often we are told that you can’t make money as a writer/painter/sculptor/actor and so forth. Only the very lucky few, such as Steven King, Salvador Dali, Leonardo DaVinci or Will Smith make it big. Everyone else is struggling.
Earning an income can be difficult in the best of times. Job security is pretty laughable in this day-and-age. Even people in industries known to make good money find challenges. Taking that into account, trying to cross the bridges between where I am now and where I want to be, it comes as no surprise that I feel rather conflicted.
I want to give, but not sacrifice in the process. This is why there are certain types of writing I only do for money. There was a small magazine I wrote three or four articles for, to put my name out there. Free press. But after one of my articles was the cover story, I said, “Hey, I am a writer. I don’t normally just give this stuff away, so please pay me.” Suffice it to say, they didn’t want any more articles for me.
Did I sacrifice something? Truth is, no. Continuing to write without pay would have made me angry. Sure, I would have gotten my name out a few more times as a published writer, but I would have sacrificed my time and my energy, and gotten nothing in return.
Does that make me a taker? No. Why? Because this is not a matter of selfishness, it is a matter of self-care.
Selfish versus selfless is the difference between take and give.
Do you expect a plumber to come into your home, fix a leak, install a toilet, and not get paid? Would you expect a doctor to perform a surgery on you free of charge? Of course not. So how come people expect artistic types to give away our work for free?
Yes, I want to give value to the world. Yes, I want to get paid to do this thing I love. How do I reconcile being a giver versus being a taker? To a large degree, it all comes down to intent.
To receive fair value for services rendered is how our society works. The problem comes in when we get confused between levels of value, fair versus unfair, and greed. Presently, a great deal of what we see in regards to the wealthy is a staggering level of greed. The unfortunate, unintended trickle-down from this is a blurring if the lines.
As such, wanting to receive fair value for my writing while still giving something back is not a selfish act. It doesn’t mean I am ending my blog, nor am I about to start charging you to read it. But in the process of consciously creating reality, I want to manifest a career as a professional writer. This is my ultimate goal.
The why of my goal, however, is because I want to give something more to the world. Whether I take you away to a fantasy world, make you laugh, or help you manifest a better life with conscious reality creation, it all is about my greatest desire to give.
Give from a place of abundance. Do so with joy and passion. Give because it feels incredible. That is my intent in manifesting the life I most desire to live.
As always, thank you for crossing the bridges between my worlds with me.
This is the sixty-fifth entry of my personal journey, the Crossing the Bridges series. My collectively published writing can be found here.
