Giver - Taker: Ventilating my frustrations

I've just yesterday watched a TED talk on the topic of givers and takers in a community. Givers as in people who has incredible amounts of generosity, and help without expectation for something in return. The talk concluded that the givers make up both the best and worst performers at their job, and the successful givers do their giving with the knowledge that they are appreciated at the end. Consequently, the group of people in between are called the matchers, and they believe in "an eye for an eye". On the end of the spectrum, the takers just benefit off the giver's work with a simple thank you.

I identify myself as a giver. Now, I am aware that the moment you call yourself one thing, you are not that anymore. I need to admit, I am not a 100% giver, and I sometimes breakdown and just say.... no. In school, among some of my friends, there is a thing called having an Aldrin, and it makes me smile each time I think of it. I to them is so generous or unique that my characteristics are worth naming after me. And strangely enough, these friends that identify me as the Aldrin are not the ones that I help but the ones that see my actions from a third-person view. I hold a belief that because I would lose everything upon death and can't ever achieve anything long-lasting, my purpose in life is to affect and help others. And when I do sometimes become thoughtful of myself, I think of it as a stepping stone as because I can't help others when I need help my own.

This act of giving on my end is sometimes stressful. Somedays, I would give my all to help others in the golden hours of a day (10am - 4pm), and the time left for myself to catch up with my supposed work is shortened to being nonexistent. Extreme cases go similar to this: I would have 4 or 5 homework along with multiple tests due on the next day, but a person needs help. I would shut up about my struggles and help that person with a positive attitude throughout the 7 hours. And at the end, I would go back home and work till 4 or 5 midnight. With all that said, the people that I help understand that they are being takers and would do anything to become a matcher, to return a favour, and that is where my problem come in.

I have written a similar blog like this in the past, and I came out of it very stingy(I deleted the post afterwards). I just want to throw it out there that I am just ventilating my frustrations, and is just trying to cure my breakdown.

Lol, back to the topic, my problem, when people try to return a favour, is that I don't request any help. They have the thought on their mind of how they must pay me a favour, and would do a lot of things to help me. Although these help are very genuine, they end up having me to give even more. The most frustrating act of repaying is to socialize with me. People normally can immediately see that I am a stranger in communities, and I seem to lack people to socialize with. This quality of mine comes from the fact that I am an introvert, so I do work best when I have space (and I do like to work in efficient groups). But when you have already taken 7 hours out of my day, I really do not have much time left to socialize. I am struggling to get work done, and a party invite while is wholehearted, is not helpful. The best results of favours that I have received is just to be appreciative and run with it. And if you create imaginations of my needs, I end up giving more to help one to feel moral. This inability for them to help me outside of financial terms put me in a position where I have to resolve their unrest in not repaying me. I end up giving even more when receiving.

To be honest, a giver that cannot be repaid is not a very good giver after all. And because of this corrupted cycle, I am only able to help so many people. And my personal desire of being a giver is not fulfilled as I am not doing my job at the magnitude that I want it to be.

After this ventilating, I am ready to going back to being a giver again. I have been repaid. I have taken the precious time of you as the reader to listen to my troubles, and I would be determined to give better from now on.

(just as a side note, I do take more than I recognize. I take teachers' time, my parents love, and introduce disturbing awkwardness in one-to-one conversations. I am a taker myself)

A practice sketch I did a long time ago. Just for
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