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We're heading toward the "giving" time of year -- Christmas and other holidays worldwide make the end of the year (and the beginning of the next one) a time for giving and caring.

But as much as I love this time of year, I always wind up wondering shouldn't every day be a time of giving? Shouldn't every month be a giving month?

At the bottom of my emails I have a quotation from Winston Churchill: "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." I doubt that Churchill ever meant it to be confined only to items that could be wrapped up in a box and set under the tree. In fact, I doubt that he ever meant it to mean "items" at all, but rather meant the contributions that we make to the world around us.

It doesn't matter whether we're a world leader or a mere custodian. Each of us can act in a way that will leave some contribution to the world around us. It may just be giving a friendly smile to your co-workers, or it may be teaching a young son or daughter something that will help them for the remainder of their lives. It might not be something newsworthy or noteworthy -- it might just be a poem left for descendants in a journal or a diary. It may be a personal experience shared with someone in need, or a Christmas card that includes a personal note of appreciation.

It may be any number of a thousand things -- but what matters is that we make a life by the gifts that we intentionally choose to give those around us.

This "giving" frame of mind makes a difference -- not only in the lives of the people we affect, but in our own lives as well. As we choose to look at the things we can give in life, rather than the things we can get out of life, we tend to shift our focus to a higher plane of thought -- we think more of others than we do of ourselves -- and that makes our life a life of service, a life of joy, and a life where there isn't enough hours in a day in which we can count our many blessings.

This holiday season, focus on the giving, not the getting -- and then extend that frame of mind beyond the holiday season, and focus on giving of yourself the whole year round.

Copyright, 2010, by Daryl R. Gibson. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the non-commercial redistribution of this document as long as it remains intact with this copyright and all other lines. This license does not extend to the use of this material in a compilation, whether for profit or non-profit use. Join us at http://www.Weekdaywisdom.com.