Giving what I have, not what the other person needs

For a long time I gave according to whatever was in front of me.

If someone needed a lot, I gave a lot. If someone was struggling, I stayed. If someone asked, I answered. The measure was never mine, it was always theirs.

And it looked like generosity.

What happened next

What happened is that I ended up empty.

Not all at once. In pieces, over days and weeks, without quite noticing. Until I reached a point where I had nothing left to give anyone, including myself.

And then came the less attractive part: the frustration. That feeling of giving so much and receiving nothing. Which is never about the other person, but gets poured onto them anyway.

The measure has to be mine

These days I ask the question the other way round.

I used to ask: how much does this person need?

Now I ask: how much do I have available?

It isn't the same question and it doesn't give the same answer. The first has no end, because someone's need can be infinite and it isn't my responsibility to fill all of it. The second has a limit, and the limit is me.

This isn't giving less

That's what I thought for a long time, which is why I resisted it.

If I give according to what I have, rather than according to what the person needs, I'm giving less. I'm being selfish. I'm abandoning someone halfway.

It isn't true.

What I give from myself, with measure, arrives whole. What I give from emptiness arrives mixed with exhaustion, with resentment and with a bill I'll want to collect later.

There's an enormous difference between giving from wholeness and giving from emptiness.

And the other person?

They might be disappointed. They might expect more.

And that's alright.

I can have empathy for someone and do nothing. I can know I'd be able to help and choose not to. I can do something twice or three times, have the person expect a fourth and a fifth, and not do the fourth and fifth.

That doesn't make me a bad person. It makes me a person with limits, which is the condition for still being available in years rather than in weeks.

What changed

I give less often and I give better.

I'm more present when I'm there, because I'm not counting the minutes or managing my own exhaustion at the same time.

And I stopped needing to be thanked, because I'm no longer paying for anything with what I give.