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Why Living Generously?

How many times have you been asked ‘what do you want for Christmas?’ or 'what do you want for your birthday?' Its great receiving presents but to be perfectly honest I've begun to find it harder to answer these questions. There is not much these days that I need (apart from shower gel and socks!). Ok, there are things I may want but actually I have even found those desires have greatly diminished in comparison with my desires to want to see others lives changed and justice issues being dealt with.

It just pains me to look out at our spending frenzies, particulary in western culture and our overindulgent commercialized Christmases and yet watch the poverty and pain on TV of so much of our world. It makes me almost want to give up giving gifts for good!

Don't get me wrong I'm not against celebrating birthdays or Christmas but isn't it about time we looked beyond our own desires?

Living Generously is a project which encourages people to do just that. As well as inspiring articles, thoughts and ideas, we have provided one way in which anyone can engage with the project and make the decision to Live Generously.

The web site provides the opportunity for people like myself to create a gift list which benefits others and then invite our friends and family to buy a gift for someone else instead of ourselves. It allows you and me to find areas and locations that we feel strongly about by providing access to a growing database of all sorts of gifts, from a meal for a marginalized person in Vancover, to a water purifying system for a village in Africa. These gifts are distributed through a large number of charities already in place to deliver them. The site is unique in that 100% of the gift amount goes direct to that charity.

Whilst we passionately believe it is important, Living Generously is more than providing gifts to those with need, it is about changing our lifestyle so that we learn to live our lives in a generous way, giving of ourselves in time, money, skills and other ways.

We all do things that are selfish but how often do we do things that are selfless, that don't benefit us directly? It is fact that people are more fulfilled in their lives when they give as well as receive.

I am continually amazed when I hear stories of very poor people in parts of the world sharing the little they have and yet not in a begrudging way. In many parts of the world we have relatively so much, isn't it about time we found a way to share what we have and Live Generously?

Pete Worthington
Project Founder

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