I was watching the CBS Evening News on Friday, December 19, 2014 which finished with an "On the Road" segment, Steve Hartman continuing the beat that Charles Kuralt started. This one was a follow-up to a story they did a week earlier about a secret Santa delegating policemen and women to help give away about a thousand hundred dollar bills, $100,000, to random strangers.
"'What do you want the officers to get out of this?' I [Hartman] asked him.
"Joy,' he answered. 'You know, as tough as they are they have hearts that are bigger than the world.'"
To the police "...secret Santa offered this gift: the chance to be the bearer of good news for a change, a chance to really help the homeless, to thank the law abiders, to see hands up in celebration and then be assaulted in the best possible way.
"There were a lot of hugs. Our body cameras took a real beating, but it was worth it -- just to see people trust again and to see cops surrender."
The follow-up was that in the week since the story first aired, it had received 40 million views online around the world.
http://www.cbsnews.com/...
This story reminded me, again, of the power of giving and gratitude, gratitude and giving.
Here is another example.
In April of 2012 I went to TEDxCambridge and heard Michael Norton, a behavioral economist at Harvard Business School, explain his work on how money can buy the most happiness via an experiment in spending:
"So let's have some people do what they usually do and spend money on themselves, and let's make some people give money away, and measure their happiness and see if, in fact, they get happier. So the first way that we did this. On one Vancouver morning, we went out on the campus at University of British Columbia and we approached people and said, 'Do you want to be in an experiment?' They said, 'Yes.' We asked them how happy they were, and then we gave them an envelope. And one of the envelopes had things in it that said, 'By 5:00 pm today, spend this money on yourself.' So we gave some examples of what you could spend it on. Other people, in the morning, got a slip of paper that said, 'By 5:00 pm today, spend this money on somebody else.' Also inside the envelope was money. And we manipulated how much money we gave them. So some people got this slip of paper and five dollars. Some people got this slip of paper and 20 dollars. We let them go about their day. They did whatever they wanted to do. We found out that they did in fact spend it in the way that we asked them to. We called them up at night and asked them, 'What'd you spend it on, and how happy do you feel now?' What did they spend it on? Well these are college undergrads, so a lot of what they spent it on for themselves were things like earrings and makeup. One woman said she bought a stuffed animal for her niece. People gave money to homeless people. Huge effect here of Starbucks. (Laughter) So if you give undergraduates five dollars, it looks like coffee to them and they run over to Starbucks and spend it as fast as they can. But some people bought a coffee for themselves, the way they usually would, but other people said that they bought a coffee for somebody else. So the very same purchase, just targeted toward yourself or targeted toward somebody else. What did we find when we called them back at the end of the day? People who spent money on other people got happier. People who spent money on themselves, nothing happened. It didn't make them less happy, it just didn't do much for them. And the other thing we saw is the amount of money doesn't matter that much. So people thought that 20 dollars would be way better than five dollars. In fact, it doesn't matter how much money you spent. What really matters is that you spent it on somebody else rather than on yourself. We see this again and again when we give people money to spend on other people instead of on themselves."
http://www.ted.com/...
I've been doing a gratitude meditation almost every day for years now. Perhaps I'll add a generosity practice too.
The Color of Gratitude
Nana lay on her back on the pillows on the floor
as Walter guided her
through the soul journey meditation.
Cradling her head, holding her feet,
all around her we supported her,
touch and intention, as she
relaxed into her private sensations.
Walter talked and Nana answered,
a golden ball of energy,
the astral traveling.
I felt the spirit in the room
rise and expand as Nana
breathed and imagined.
Towards the end, she described
the orange light of gratitude that reached out to touch
everyone
on the planet
then returned to her body
to infuse each of her cells.
Thank you magnified
the fundamental blessing.
*
I felt it then and feel it now
simple and profound.
*
Years later
the power of that feeling
renews each morning
as I do my own gratitude meditation.
Laying in bed,
shavasana, corpse pose,
I breathe my prayer and settle
to let Thanks begin.
Out to the world, into my body,
into my body and out to the world,
riding the wavelength of the color of gratitude.
Just this Spring, I looked into the heart
of the first crocus
and recognized the pollen on the stamen
as that bright orange color
color of gratitude.
Now
that crocus pollen color reaches without separation
from each individual cell of my body
to each individual person in the world
and back again.
Does that wavelength
have a resonance
that echoes as a prayer of
Thanks
without ceasing?
No matter.
Thank you for a taste of the crocus orange color of
gratitude
every morning anyway.
4/17/08
revised 7/10/08
This link takes you to a picture of a crocus showing that color of gratitude. For some reason, I couldn't get it to appear on the page so you'll have to click through:
https://www.flickr.com/...