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
