Two Christmases ago I wanted to get my Samsung phone fixed so that I could give my little sister the Huawei since she barely had a phone. I failed to get the Samsung fixed and my boyfriend gifted me a Nokia 6 instead. I gave my sister the Huawei as planned.
Fast forward to this year, I got a new phone. And I was conflicted about it and I told my boyfriend and asked him what to do with the Nokia he had given me. His response was, “Baby, it’s not up to me. I gave it to you and it’s yours to do with what you’d like.”
And it hit me, when you give someone something, it’s no longer yours.
I’ve always lived life from the “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away” mentality. This is because most humans are wired that way. When things sour after the dissolution of a relationship, the this-is-mine game starts and only adds to the frustration of both parties. I’ve never understood people who give back gifts they received during the good times. It’s mine til the death of me.
https://twitter.com/MsKelebogile/status/1230187356998848512
Truth is, God’s gifts are without recalling. This means, whatever he has given you, you get to keep and it’s yours to lose. He doesn’t take it back just because you have done something bad. Did your parents ever take away your stuff as punishment for doing something they didn’t like? This threats and rewards system is the reason why we use things to punish people.
The one place where my philosophy doesn’t work is virginity. I don’t understand how such-and-such can take someone’s virginity. The whole underlying principle of virginity being something that is taken away completely baffles me. This is a different and much longer conversation about power trips involved in sexual politics.
https://twitter.com/bevrub/status/1161573346997362688
We are so unhappy because each and everything we give away, we follow it emotionally. We don’t know how to give freely without expectations. When you give someone something, you expect a thank you, you expect them to appreciate it you expect full on praise and worship. You wanna hover over that gift and supervise how the receiver is managing it or looking after it. And until we let that flawed mentality go, we’ll always be bitter and giving people a piece of our mind until we have nothing left.
This is so true. Some people actually start policing the gifts they give you, “how can you use the phone I gave you like that?” and you are just there thinking it’s mine, you gave it to me.