“I want to give something back.”

How many times have you heard this? How many times you say it? “Give something back.” Not sure what that “something“ is, but you know you got it, and you got a “need” to share “it.”

Comes over you when you get a little older, but could crop up following a tough life, and you feel the pull to help others who might not have been as fortunate as yourself. Those who didn’t make it out of the old neighborhood, who went “bad” not having a full-time mother and no father at all to help guide them at home.

Home? Some may have escaped from some hole in the wall where Life looked good from the littered city pavement of the projects. Or an empty farm land where an alcoholic parent would beat you every time he drank.

You want to “give back” after turning a corner in your Life and you realize you really didn’t make it on your own. That there was something inside of you that “pulled” you, perhaps “lifted” you when you thought you couldn’t continue and you surprised yourself with the resiliency you were amazed to find within you.

Maybe it wasn’t just you. Maybe there was a Higher Force at work, one that some scoff at, claiming such a belief is nothing more than an “opium for the masses.” Maybe you were “predestined” to accomplish all you have achieved, and that there really is a purpose to a Life that sometimes seems purposeless.

“Giving back” might just be the answer. And, it can be done in as many ways as there are people in this 6 billion-populated World we share. Well, what is it that will fulfill our need to “bestow,” if I can use that term? Authenticity, Genuineness, the Real You. You have to give of your “true self.” Perhaps, we all need to let go of the roles we play, the positions we take and get back to being our selves. Start off slowly. Test it on a stranger, or a person whom you don’t know well, someone who has no expectations of you or the “persona” you created to “be you.”

“Give something back” to him or her. Give of your “true self.” Next, move on to others, perhaps in a completely new setting, like a book-reading club, a meditation group, an art class. If you’re in prison, (like some I know) seek the company of like-minded persons through a prison ministry, an occupational group, a correspondence organization.

“Let go” of the old baggage and “recreate“ the ideal person you always knew you were, but feared to let manifest for one reason or another. You can allow that person, that child-like good and wholesome you, “give something back.”

Isn’t that what the Great Ones told us to do? Buddha, Moses, Mohammad, Jesus, Krishna, Vishnu, Mother Earth just to name a few. And they gave us nothing more than what you have to give: “Your Loving Self.”