Winston Churchill said that we make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. Yesterday a friend of mine pulled one of my favourite George Bernhard Shaw quotes out of the archive and as I read it I was reminded of something Leo Tolstoy said: “Joy can be real only if people look upon their life as a service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.”
One of the biggest challenges I am faced with at the moment is figuring out what generosity really looks like in my everyday life and what it means to give richly of what I have and who I am:
“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children…to leave the world a better place…to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.” – Albert Pine