GIVERS

Have you come across a species of Human that is extremely generous? Not with their money per se, but with time, smiles, hugs, and a particular gentle patience – especially the - being loving towards you for you? These are the people that when you spot them in the street or at the supermarket or gym or wherever, you veer out of your way to greet them because YOU KNOW when they see you you’ll be rewarded with a huge grin and a big special interest in YOU, plus you’ll walk away with a bounce in your step and a zest in your heart!

I call them GIVERS. They give and hand out Generosity Packages from a seemingly endless reservoir, and I try to imitate them as much as I can…

Well, I try….

Like, I have OCD - I am a clean-freak and want everything ‘just so!’. But I am also a Hugger. So, I rein in and put on Bugatti Disk Breaks to curb my ‘clean’ instincts when I pick my kids up from school or if they come with School Transport and find me at home… I open my arms wide to receive their messy, sweaty, dirty, smelly hugs and kiss them on their smelly, sweaty, grimy cheeks because I want them to know that I love them for who they are, not how they look or smell.  And after enough hugs have been disbursed and they are assured that their status in my book is WELCOMED and LOVED, then and only then do they know where they can put their smelly, stinky school uniforms.

That is my Generosity Package right there to my kids. It teaches them that Love is important, not looks and grade-cards. Yes, there is a place for those, but what honestly is more gracious and giving than being appreciated pap! - right now – as soon as I glimpse you?

Because who else should we be generous to if not those at home? It’s okay to be sweet and kind to the whole world, but why be downright nasty, rude and a selfish miserable miser at home?

I am sad when I write this article because unfortunately, I’ve witnessed those who do just that, as I’m sure you have too…

Wispy tendrils of smoke-talk like  ‘yes, I’ve heard he’s a charmer but at home he’s a brute’, or ‘she’s so charismatic but ngai fafa, aki fika home she’s a ka-total bee-aich!’

Hmm.

People respond to people in the same way that they respond to us – if I grin and smile at you, you’ll most probably (unless you have Bipolar and you’re off your meds), grin and smile right back. If I am a Hugger, people around me will begin to be Huggers, this is true, this is how I became a hugger and many many kids now hug their own mothers because I insist on sweaty hugs…! But… If I yell and shout at you constantly… well, in time you will do the same.

If your man comes home all sweaty and clammy after being out in this current Dar heat, do you shrink back, holding your Generosity Package to yourself or do you see him for who he is and hug him anyway? What type of WELCOME do you give? Maybe you don’t hug. Maybe shaking hands is your thing, or removing his shoes when he sits down, or smiling and bringing him food, or singing and dancing, or laughing is your welcome… so, do you hand out the Generosity Package or not?

Dude, when you get home, do you hand out a GP like buy flowers before you get home, - or do you bypass your Baby Mama like those new Highways in Nairobi and head straight for the shower then talk her when you’re all clean and Spick ‘n Span 2 hours later? Forget the -  ‘I didn’t want to touch you until I’m showered…’ business. We women hear only the first 6 words of that sentence… yes please, go back and count.. If you want #peace@home, first begin with her, let the wife be the one to say, Welcome home, phooooie…. Go shower!

(And anyway, what were Imperial Leather and Nivea For Men invented for?) Or are you hiding the perfume smells from hugs given by other women??? Ya, right! It’s not just me Nyakio thinking and writing that, my voice is just an echo of countless women who wonder why their men’s I’M GLAD I’M HOME shout  has disappeared!

So…Why aren’t you so welcoming anymore?

When we peer more closely at the Naturally Generous Person we learn that they are very tender-hearted. Their hearts are huge, but sensitive. Kind of like an egg. Pressing an egg and exerting gentle pressure between your palms will not break it. But hitting it with a sharp object will…. And the same is true for those who are naturally generous. They appreciate first and foremost that you’re aware of their boundaries and you understand that while they have let you enter one circle, there is yet another circle within that circle - there are like concentric circles within a tree, so please, don’t push in all the way right now….

(Lol, sounds wrong, but you get the picture….)

What’s that inner circle? It’s the one where you respect my values.

Don’t pick up and “borrow” my stuff without letting me know because we’re friends and I loaned you a gym bag last week.

True, I want you to come to my house and enjoy yourself, and you’ve come here for 3 continuous weekends, but when I tell you I need some me time, don’t be rude and ask me what you did or what’s wrong. Simply understand what I said… I need ME time.

Or don’t come to my house and find it nice and clean then trash it.

Return things where you found them. Don’t re-arrange my office-desk or worse, my FRIDGE OR WARDROBE!!

I know I have a vehicle but don’t make your plots  or kande’s around me driving you round town.

Yes, Karibu to my home, but don’t leave at 3am when you know I have to wake up at 4am…

There’s an old, old saying, ‘You give an Inch and they take a Mile’. Me, I prefer mine – I give you a Sandwich, you sneak into my kitchen and take the loaf…

The Relative as the best example:

……. if there is one type of person that pushes the Generous person’s RED BUTTON, it is the relatives and in-laws. Your relatives plus their own – the inlaws. This is a special breed of person who at the worst can camp in your home and DARE the Generous Partner MAKE ONE NEGATIVE COMMENT and crack! the spouse responds (usually) to – THIS IS MY BROTHER, OR MOTHER, OR COUSIN, how Dare you suggest they shouldn’t come visit??

The Egg Cracks…

Because when your relatives are in my home but they treat me as:

TICK AS APPLICABLE (maid, poor hubby, slave, inferior, that-lesser being-who-married-my-brother/sister/cousin/son/daughter/niece) ___________________ (OTHER)

Ladies scream: Why can’t hubby see that?

And Men ask, why can’t my wife see that her ______ is driving me INSANE?

(maybe I should say sane, as insanity has been branded as The New Normal )

Most, not all - women find it hard to be generous to their in-laws unless they live on another continent (if not planet) and leave you as a couple alone to deal with all the upheavals that strain marriages, but unfortunately, what happens is:

• most hubbies unkindly tell their wives that they ‘have 2 characters and are schizophrenic’ – even going as far as calling their wives hypocrites and having hypocritical natures.

• many men demand that we women should treat  their in-laws the same way women treat their bosom buddies.

• I have heard cases where men ask their wives to treat his best friends like her friends…(no problem, let him wait inside for an hour or so while I make my way home in traffic….)

Yes, the above applies to friends as well. Plus spouses, sisters, brothers, people close to us. In the name of religion, family, culture, whatever! That sandwich that I took time to make, the Turkham sandwich receipe that I stole from the (Ocean) Culture Café,… listen, I took time to buy the Turkey, (NOT Kuku!!!) yes, I buy Mayo, Lettuce, Thousand Island, mix it all together, buy some good nyummy bread, make you this delicious food, plus I give you a glass of Tall Cold freshly squeezed juice (not ju-wees!). I go into all this effort to make this… this nyummy sandwich for you then you refuse my offer, chuck it aside, walk into my kitchen and grab the loaf and BB in my fridge instead!

I am hurt, people!!

Out of the box advice

Generous people are sensitive and take time to understand you. Now it’s your turn to try and understand them… because pushing the Generous spirited person causes what I label as the RED BUTTON of Defense. If you continue playing with their kindness and taking  the whole loaf of bread when a sandwich was offered, that’s when the GP begins to build The Wall and you start to wonder at the ‘sudden hostility’ pouring out of this previously generous person.

Short sentences,

Avoiding you,

A lack of smiles,

Don’t ask ‘Did I do something?’

Dumb Q!!

OF COURSE YOU DID!!

Crack….!

So now we have a couple that’s disagreed on the home front about their differing views and levels of generosity..

And in the crack created by that snap, out seeps a gooey mess of un-generosity.

We stop handing out smiles like delicate gorgeous flowers but hold our mouths pursed and ugly, we don’t look for time to be with people, we refuse to return calls, because when they call it’s to ask, ask, ask, ask, ask and never to give, even if it’s just a simple ‘they just called to say Hello! I mean, how many calls have I simply let R-I-N-G!!!! because I know it’s an ‘AKS’ call?

Truly, our generosity can be so broken within us that often we end up creating an unwelcome spirit to those closest to us  - workmates, friends, Pastors and those at home - guarding our tongues and smiles and hugs for fear of rejection or more hurt.

• That’s when we may scream mindlessly at our kids for coming home dirty and smelly and snarl at them for each and every misdemeanor.

• That’s when we won’t welcome our wife home and simply sit, not getting up from the sofa but blindly staring at the TV with a bored ‘oh-you’re home’ grimace and increase the volume of whatever we’re watching when she tries to talk to us.

• That’s when we women will growl in Church and ask the poor young thing very rudely – what you doing sitting there? THIS is my CHAIR!

• That’s when we as 18+ & over 20’s snap-back at our Parents for no good reason.

• That’s when I give everyone a cold up and down haughty dismissal look as I walk past them…

• That’s when we growl at the check-in-counter in the Supermarket at (again) the poor young thing and ask her scathingly ‘what’s taking you so effing long to work that cashier machine, I don’t have all day to stand here!”…..

Woiyeeeee, Poor thing… she wonders what she did wrong. She didn’t. Our Generous person is simply hurting….

That’s when we behave like kindergarten children holding our GENEROSITY toys to ourselves and shouting ‘MINE! IT’S MINE!’ No you can’t PLAY with MINE!!

As you wander through the rest of this week, ask yourself a really simple question: Why have I become such an ungracious person, why have I built up all these walls?

And deeper yet, about that graceful gracious friend that’s close to you, ask yourself:

Why has SHE/HE built walls towards me? What may I have done? Remember: It’s impossible for a genuinely generous person to close up for too long. It’s in their DNA genetic make-up to BE a Giver.

They just won’t give to YOU if you hit their Red Button.

That sandwich up there? The one that the Generous Person is handing out to you? Often we forget to accept it with a smile and a simple thank you, instead demanding the whole loaf simply for the sake of it –not that we’re hungry but because we’re greedy and we think it’s our right. Let me tell you a secret: you haven’t earned it. Nope, you haven’t. So say Thank You and act like you mean it!

Learn to be sensitive and accept what you’re given graciously. Be generous back to the Givers in this life, we need them, they really do make the world go round while the rest of us groan and moan continually at what life throws at us. Pushing it and being insensitive to Givers will only result in you turning them into  miserable, hyper, stressed out porcupines that you don’t want to venture too close to.

© NYAKIO MUNYINYI for The XPENSIEVE REPORT, NOV 2012