This is a question I ask myself regularly if not daily. I try to operate my life in a checks and balances format. I am conservative when I need to be and generous when I am able. This is from a dollars and cents standpoint clearly. There are so many blessings you can give that do not always start with putting your hand in your pocket to take out money. My grandmother Marie Ascione was the person that set my path on being honorable and generous. She grew up during the depression on a dirt farm in Mississippi. She grew vegetables and cotton and helped take care of the chickens. She told me her chore list at 6 years old and it was what a modern homesteader has to do to get by. I have been to this family farm and have eaten at the old wooden table she grew up at. I have drawn water from that well and been to that outhouse and learned how to properly use the Sears catalog.
What does a dirt farm in Mississippi have to do with my mindset on blessings? My family in Mississippi was poor, depression era then poor dirt farmer poor. One would imagine that that level of poverty would make a person hold their resources dearly. Not my grandmother. She would tell me that if she had a biscuit and her friend was hungry when they were children she would always share her biscuit. If her belly was empty and her friend had a piece of cornbread in a handkerchief, they would split that cornbread. The sliver of her past I put together was that a young woman who had very little, but toil and hardship made her world a better place by always being willing to feed a friend or stranger. Think about sharing a meal with someone that shows up unannounced. Immediately your hackles might go up. A last minute inconveniences! For my grandmother there was always enough. If someone showed up or straggled in out of nowhere there would be another chair, a plate and food on that plate. She always knew she was blessed to be able to feed a stranger or a friend. To nourish their bodies and spirit.
The thing that I put into contrast is how easily we go to the store to get groceries and still can’t feed everyone but my grandmother who had a dirt farm and the store was for sugar and flour and seeds managed to always pull out enough. Make a thing go further. “Everyone at the table eats.” It honestly touches my heart to think of her and this lesson she taught. It inspires me to give in ways people don’t often think to give. I give my time to listen and offer council. I have more times than I can count given money or resources. I have given away appliances, tools, work I could have used, just give. Every blessing you give comes back with additional rewards.
Now that there is more success in my life, I find that the most important thing I have is time. I must be careful with this resource and how I spend it. I still always have time to talk and listen, but I have noticed I am more prone to get to the meat and potatoes of the matter. Let’s get to the obstacle or the problem and let’s resolve it and have some quality time. When people want to learn how to do what I do they want to buy me lunch. My time has now outpaced the monetary value of lunch and I cannot do that anymore. People want to learn how to do what I do and I just chuckle. I teach a select few that want to learn but I tell them this overnight success took decades of studying and development. This sport is like Kung Fu. You do not take a book and voila Kung Fu master. You spend years learning how to posture, how to strike, how to defend, how to absorb a blow and turn it into a counterattack against your opponent. So, I tell people now that want this gift of my mentorship if you can commit a number of hours a week for five years to this task and be all in you can learn this Kung Fu. Most think this is a silly diversionary statement but think of every successful person you know. Were they born at that high level or did they knuckle up and charge at their task for decades? They put in the time and took the beatings life throws at you. They committed to their vision and their goal. They made it.
This is what I think I can give now. At this point in my life this education and philosophy is the best wealth I can give. It will turn pauper into a person of means and allow others to grow wealth and give more blessings themselves. Give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach him to breed fish and you feed his family for generations. So, I challenge each of you to take a moment and look at what you give of yourselves to your circle. Can you give more? Again, not money or resource unless that is what you feel best about giving, but can you give more wisdom and life altering interactions? I challenge you to look deeper into who you are and what you can offer a friend’s legacy. Help someone in a way that lifts them for life! Lift someone in a way that allows them to lift others and speak of you with the same passion I speak about my grandmother. This is as close to immortality as a person can get I feel, changing lives for generations, changing lives that will change thousands of lives for the better. I will get off of my soapbox and simply say thank you for reading this and I would love to hear your thoughts on what you could give and how to make it a better blessing to the recipient. Reach out and let me know what you come up with.
Stay safe and I hope to hear from you in the near future.
John Michael Gentry