Thursday, February 28, 2008

there are free gifts...or at least, there should be.

we actually discussed this in my economics class in high school. my teacher said there was no such thing as a free lunch (or in this case, gift).  For example, if i buy a lunch for a homeless person, its not free because I'm obviously spending money on the food.  Not only that, but i'm spending time on getting the lunch; furthermore, I'm sacrificing energy.  I disagree with that though. the way i see it, the more attached you are to material matters, the more expensive gifts will be.  Personally, i don't care that much about money; if we really needed it to survive, it would grow on trees. Thats how the earth works: it gives us what we need to survive, and it gives us what  we need to die. Money is man-made; its unnecessary. Recently, i bought a bag full of food for a homeless man because i felt he deserved it. He's obviously going through some shit; he deserves respect. And yea, it cost around $30, but who cares? its money: worthless pieces of paper. he's a living, breathing human being with a story to tell just like any one of us.  In the economic sense, this wasn't free. In the human sense, it was.  I found a really good quote that goes along with what im saying:

“The sacrifice which causes sorrow to the doer of the sacrifice is no sacrifice. Real sacrifice lightens the mind of the doer and gives him a sense of peace and joy."

So basically, if you're giving a gift because you have to and not because you want to, it's not free. That's more of a burden than a gift. and i'm sorry, i've given this a lot of thought, but i'm having trouble explaining it.


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