Generosity of Perspective

Most people, when they think of generosity, think of it in terms of resources, a giving of time, energy, materials, talents, or money when it is not strictly required, and with some degree of largess.  Examples of deep-pocketed philanthropists come to mind, but generosity need not be headline-making.  Arguably, it should not be.  You can see generosity in anything from tithing at church to staying late at work to help a colleague with a difficult task.  This is how we see generosity, and it is exemplary of generosity, but it does not define generosity.

Generosity is not merely giving; it is giving without obligation on the part of any party involved, above any preconceived expectations.  Therefore, it is distinct from charity, which is more transactional in nature.  Ayn Rand went so far as to claim that all charity is fundamentally selfish, which is more of a reframing than it is a revelation – just think of all the sayings, quotes, advertisements, and research claiming that you will see as much or more benefit from volunteering than those for whom you are doing the volunteer work.  This is why people will give their time to something instead of using that same time to make more money working in their specialty and then donating that money, which is arguably more effective from an outcomes perspective.  Charity, then, is something you do, an action that you take.  Generosity is more internal.

In fact, while being generous affects other people, it does not focus on other people.  A person can be generous without doing anything external.  Rather than being an action, generosity is more akin to a state of mind.  Indeed, quite aside from the giving of time, energy, money, talents, or materials that can be confused with charity, there is a kind of generosity that is all about how you think of the people around you, perhaps without them every being aware of it directly.  Rather than giving time, money, materials, energy, or talents, you give the benefit of the doubt.

A common phrase, the benefit of the doubt, and it is usually deployed as a milder version of “innocent until proven guilty,” but it can be come far more powerful when it is deployed in the context of generosity.  It is a generosity of perspective, and it is, I have learned, not something that comes naturally to most people.

Years ago, I was forced into mentoring sessions.  Now, I am certainly not against mentoring in general terms, but this particular mentor and I were terribly incompatible, and I have a natural aversion to being forced into things “for my own good.”  One question she asked me stood out, one about the benefit of the doubt.  In particular, she asked me about being cut off in traffic, and I gave some longwinded response about perspective, seeing if there was a legitimate reason for the action, and the importance of always considering edge cases.  When I finished, she said that it was a very interesting answer, and proceeded to explain that almost no one else answers in such a way (I think she doubted my honesty, which ran quite counter to her high level of careerist cynicism).  She told me that it was a very unique (and by unique, she was clearly implying “wrong” or “defective”) way of looking at the world, and she spent the remainder of our mandatory mentoring sessions trying to psychoanalyze an uncooperative subject.

Now, before you get the wrong impression, don’t start thinking that I don’t get annoyed about aggressive drivers, or that I am blind to people’s faults because I’m too busy giving them the benefit of the doubt.  Rather, it would be more accurate to say that my reactions tend to be filtered through a deliberate thought process in which I start from the assumption that every individual is a reasonable, decent person, and the protagonist of their own story.  Sometimes, the result is still that some drivers are selfish, aggressive, and have no situational awareness. Okay, many of them.

The point, though, is that I learnt that not everyone enacts such a process – in fact, very few people do.  That process is what I mean when I refer to a generosity of perspective, and I try to apply that kind of generosity to all, or at least most, of my interactions.  Mostly, I want to understand why people act and think the way they do, and so I try to explain their perspective to myself.  This has a side effect of making me more naturally inclined to be a devil’s advocate, much to the occasional frustration and annoyance of people close to me.

Like Ayn Rand’s view of charity, I do not try to be generous in this way as much for other’s sakes as for mine.  Viewing and thinking of people through a generous lens is better for relationships, interactions, and my own psyche.  Maybe it’s an optimist’s perspective, but I do not assume that my generous interpretations and inferences are reflective of reality.  “Be generous” has about become an axiom of mine of which I remind people, including myself, when a discussion trends vitriolic, or an interaction starts to deteriorate.

Some time ago, the phrase “don’t judge” entered the common lexicon, which no one manages to actually apply, least of all the people most likely to deploy it; I’ve therefore always considered it a rather foolish saying.  Judgement is essential to human interaction, but judgement is innately neither positive nor negative.  Far more useful, therefore, to be generous in our judgements, than to attempt (even if it were possible) to not judge at all.  This becomes all the more relevant and valuable in our context of heightened vitriol, rampant disagreement, reckless feuding, dramatic posturing, and relentless ad hominem attacks that are enhanced and exacerbated by the internet medium.  More useful than most any other intervention is simply to be generous, to judge generously.

As always, this idea is no panacea, no grandiose revelation.  Generosity, and its application to our interactions and the way we view the world, is not a revolutionary concept, nor is it a complex one, but that does not make it less potentially powerful.  Neither is it easy to execute and practice; it requires deliberate thought and a challenging kind of introspective critical thinking to note when you most need to remind yourself to be generous in the lens through which you are approaching the world, but that is worthwhile effort, for generosity of this kind towards others can improve both your own disposition and your interactions with others.  It doesn’t even matter if people are generous back towards you, although that would be pleasant side effect.  Remember to be generous towards others, and you might find that the world is a nicer place to live than it before appeared.