Selfish Generosity from the Person-Who-Always-Pays
When being too nice can be detrimental to your soul.
Do you ever encounter someone who picks up the tab for you? Do you feel treated? Spoiled? Elated? Guilty? I’m sure each of these reactions are entirely normal but dictated by context. Well what about when someone else is always picking up the tab and no amount of arguing over the bill will convince the person otherwise?
Some of you may be thinking, “Wow, this guy is lucky to get someone paying for his bills all the time.” Well, it ain’t necessarily about me (though it has happened to me before). But really, if you make company with people from the Middle East, you will find yourself surrounded by those who come from an extremely kind and generous culture (and no, I’m not telling you to go make Middle Eastern friends so you can bum a free meal off of them).
Every once in a while, you’ll run into an awkward situation. Let me describe one of many historical scenarios. One person is known for always paying for the meal, and even after finally conceding to let the other pay, the person-who-always-pays gets up to go to the restroom and while on the way there, slips that person’s credit card to waiter or waitress. “Oh, I’m sorry. Your meal was already paid for.” Now that this trick has been known, on a future outing the person-who-always-pays would advance the waiter/waitress the credit card prior to sitting down.
What’s more, the archetype of the person-who-always-pays will reject the generosity of others, even when in need. Any more specific on stories of this type and readers will begin to think that I am singling any of them out.
Listen, generosity is a critical virtue that many in the Western world have lost. We will often pay for our own meals or at times and even worse, be inconvenienced by someone in need. We have a lot to learn from the generosity of other cultures. But every once in a while we may run into someone who prevents us from exercising our own acts of generosity. This is an important observation that I’ve had with others on the giving and receiving ends of generosity. I do not know what motivates the person-who-always-pays, but I hope that the prime factor driving the generosity is a genuine joy in offering kindness to others. It is important however to offer others the opportunity to likewise engage in such acts of kindness, not to pay anyone back for a previous kindness received, but to be transformed by the joy of what it feels like to be loved and cared for. If in the end the person-who-always-pays won’t let anyone else ever pick up the tab, the person-who-always-pays is robbing the other of the same grace.
In short, offering to cover others is great, even a short bout of arguing over who pays the tab is great, but so is relenting when its appropriate.
If you have never been in this situation, start by paying for everyone you dine with. Just take it upon yourself to do so. Others may be so conditioned to paying for themselves that they haven’t given a thought to the generous approach and your kindness may plant the seeds for a generous heart in another.
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