Give And Take

There are two types of people in the world, takers and givers. In a perfect world, people would be equal parts of each. Some people are, but not nearly as many as it would take to get the world to run smoothly and for half the population to stop thinking the other half a bunch of assholes.
Being one or the other doesn’t necessarily make you selfish or a pushover, but people today can’t seem to do anything in moderation. We are polarized, and everything in life increasingly seems to come down to two choices, and no wiggle room in between. We seem to have lost the time or patience for all the nuances of life. You get to be one thing or the other, that’s it, so here we are with your choices for today: giver and taker.
The weird thing is, as soon as you are established as one or the other, you take to that role with a vengeance. Once someone has defined you as a giver, that’s all they see you as. Once you define yourself as a giver, that’s how you see yourself as well. It becomes who you are. You feel a need to help care for everyone except you. You put other’s needs in front of your own. You tend to devalue yourself without even seeing it, because you are fulfilling a role. Eventually, you might even get your sense of self worth twisted up in caring for everyone, and you are spreading yourself too thin in an effort to get everyone to see you as you see yourself, and like you at the expense of your self image. Like I said, we take to our roles with a vengeance.
The problem is, once you are a giver, you usually wind up with a taker. The thing about takers is that most of them are completely unaware that they are takers. They might not have started out that way. They might have had that same hesitation and guilt we feel when people present us with the easy way out at one point, but they soon learn to ignore that. They develop the attitude that if someone is offering to do it, why not just let them, and there is always going to be a giver around to do it.
Once you are in these giver/taker relationships, you really settle in to your roles. The givers usually wind up putting their wants and needs on hold to serve the takers, and they convince themselves that they are happy to do it. In some sense, they are. They get their self esteem from feeling needed, so the more the better. They often become enablers, serving their takers and making it easier for the taker to become complacent and lazy, or to sink into their addictions more, or become more abusive and entitled. No one wins.
What’s kind of strange for a giver is that while your relationships with your spouse or partner, and your family, usually falls into the whole giver/taker mess, your close friends are usually givers as well. Perhaps it’s because you commiserate with them. It’s a frustrating way to live though, for a number of reasons.
First off, you can clearly see from the outside that they are being taken advantage of, even when you can’t see it in your own life. It’s frustrating because givers don’t take, they give, so they don’t want your help. That goes against everything they are. They are the helpers, they are the caregivers, and asking for help themselves seems like poison to them. Givers often get to the point where they cannot even take a compliment, because they have gotten so caught up in their role that even a kind word feels like they are taking more than they deserve. They derive no pleasure from it; in fact, it almost seems insulting to ask them to take even a tiny thing like that. That is not who they are. So when two givers get together, they will constantly try to care for each other, but neither will slip into the taker role, so everything eventually becomes a log jam.
It is also a problem when givers get together because it holds up a mirror to themselves, and on some levels they resent the other person showing them that they are basically a servant to an entitled master. They can only point out the problems in another giver’s life for so long before they start to notice the parallels in their own.
The ironic thing is, takers turn their children into givers, while givers often turn their children into takers. The role you give to your child will usually define them for the rest of their lives, so be careful. It is kind of unavoidable, though. Give your child too much, and they will think that’s how the world works, and they become entitled. Make your child jump through hoops or saddle them with too much responsibility, and they think that’s how you earn love. Parents are usually so entrenched in their own roles by the time kids come along that they don’t even know that they are doing it.
In that way, takers aren’t always simply selfish or bad, they just came up with the opposite idea. Someone being subservient and attentive to them seems like love, so they think that’s how it should be. They often don’t figure out that they are not providing that for the person they are with, but why should they? The system works, the giver feels like they are fulfilling their role in the relationship, so what’s the problem?
Givers aren’t all innocent themselves. Many times, they look for relationships with takers because they feel it gives them some control. The more a person comes to depend on someone, the more they are beholden and likely to stay. It can really go to extremes at times. The next time you look at some successful and amazing person who has shackled themselves to some pathetic loser, realize that it is because they feel like it gives them the power in the relationship.
Every good relationship is give and take, but that is supposed to mean that each person gives and takes in equal amounts. Somehow along the way, that got lost. Like I said earlier, we get a choice between two things, and in doing so, we have pared down the complexities and nuances in being human to a few easy labels. We just want someone to fit into their box and get on with it already. We even see ourselves in more simplistic and narrow terms, and we conform ourselves to that mold.
The problem is, that is not who we are at all. We are diverse and complicated, a mosaic of all the things we see and experience and wonder about. We cannot confine ourselves to simple roles and outlooks forever without tremendous willpower and sacrifice. As we get older, we start to realize that roles are stifling, and rob us of our potential. That is why many relationships don’t last. The things that define our roles change, the people we really are cry out for more as we see all the world has to offer, and all the time we spent ignoring it.
Relationships are complex, and ironically, the more time we spend trying to simplify them, the more convoluted and complex they become. We try to tidy up and streamline our lives, but that’s not who we are. The best chance we have is to be honest with ourselves and the people in our lives from the start, and work on learning to give and take in roughly equal parts. Learning to be less selfish and to start giving more is obvious, but It seems crazy to think that we have to learn to accept help or compliments, but I know that many people reading this know exactly how hard that can be.
I know it’s pretty impossible to get an equal amount of give and take on both sides. There is a reason that the whole giver/taker thing exists in the first place. To some people, giving is always going to make them feel better about who they are, and for others, being pampered or taken care of brings them comfort. It doesn’t have to be perfectly balanced, but it also doesn’t have to be one-sided all the time. The best you can do is be aware, and make an effort to give more, and to accept what you are given. If a taker makes an effort and is rebuffed or feels unappreciated, the chances of them trying again greatly diminish.
Like everything in life, try to be more complete, and encourage and cultivate all your complexity. When you do, find someone who is just as complex, and appreciates you for it. If you are already in a relationship, try to grow together. Beware, though. If the other person isn’t ready or willing to change and grow with you, it will probably not end well, but staying with someone who isn’t willing to grow is much worse. Just try to be encouraging and patient, but that is hard sometimes when you start to discover who you are. It often feels like other people are holding you back, and resentment grows, unfairly or not.
Or just continue on in your stifling giver/taker relationships. The world has been running on them forever, and will continue to do so. But take a look at the world. Look at all the bad relationships, the misery, the broken promises, the abuse, the children who are often left behind, the entire dysfunction the world struggles with on a daily basis. Is it really good enough, or is it time for a change?