Research Paper Example about Generosity

Though it serves as a necessary virtue in the modern world, many people still underestimate generosity. Generosity conveys to people the care that someone holds for the people around them. It takes into account many things like the gift of someone’s time, money, security, talent, or even someone’s life. Generosity means freely giving up something to benefit someone other than one’s self for the overall good of the world. 

A small part of generosity includes donating hard-earned money to those who may need it more. For example, Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, exemplifies great generosity. He has given over 27 billion dollars to charities, such as the GAVI Alliance, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Rotary Fund. All of these need the support of money more than he ever could. Even though donating his money to others can have a negative impact on him. He does not expect anything in return for his generosity. Through his donation, Bill Gates benefits the greater part of the world rather than acting selfishly and keeping his money to himself. Selfishness embodies the opposite of generosity, keeping everything to one’s self and not worrying about the people or the world around them that suffers. Rather, generosity resembles selflessness, upholding more concern about others that surround one’s self and doing what it takes to accommodate the needs of others before accommodating personal desires. To act generously people also must learn to act selflessly and instead of focusing on themselves, people must focus on others.

Another crucial aspect of generosity includes sacrificing personal time for the benefit of others. This consists of giving up time where someone could either make money, enhance their education, or relax. But instead, generous people choose to devote the precious time that they have to others. To illustrate, Selena Gomez, a world-renowned artist, and songwriter, gave up her time when she could have produced music or gone on a music tour. She instead visited places all around West and Central Africa to help out in the nutrition crisis that went on there. She used both her time and her money, to instead better the world around her and show others what it meant to act generously. Mothers all around the world also display this type of generosity in their everyday life. Mothers sacrifice their careers, education, and relaxation time, to care for their children effectively. This gift of their time embodies genuine generosity and what it means to act generously towards others.

Generosity also includes someone showing off their talents and abilities to entertain others at no cost to the people watching. To act generously in this way, someone will go out of their way to show off their talent, but instead of doing it for personal gain, they will do it for the joy of others. Generosity through talents deprives people of money that they could make during this time. But this sacrifice of potential money exemplifies how to act generously. Taylor Swift, yet another world-renowned artist, singer, and songwriter, showed off her talents and generosity when she would hold private concerts and performances for sick kids in the hospital who were unable to attend her concerts. Taylor Swift would trade the chance to earn money for that performance and instead just perform for the sick kids out of generosity. 

Some people will even go the farthest with generosity and they will physically give up their own life to save someone else. For example, the first responders, who rescued all of the people who worked in the Twin Towers on September 9, 2001, showed true generosity on that fateful day. Many of these first responders gave up their lives to save strangers who would have tragically taken their places. This sacrifice remains the greatest generous act of all, giving up a future to let someone else have theirs. This specific form of generosity remains scarce in the modern world. Especially because the world creates a feeling of numbness for the people suffering around them. Most of the world only concerns themselves with what they want, and how they can get the most out of everything. Therefore, few people act truly generously today in the modern world. 

Lastly, generosity cannot be forced. If people force others to give to someone else who needs it more, that does not display natural and genuine generosity that comes from a free will to donate selflessly. This highlights why not many people act truly generously in the modern world. Since many people feel compelled to give to random charities, they do not act truly generously from deep down in their hearts. Through the social pressure of churches, friends, and charity groups that borderline force people to donate to their group, true generosity disintegrates. Moreover, when parents force their children to volunteer to get ‘an experience’ from volunteer work, true generosity once again falls away. For example, my mother used to force my brothers and me to go volunteer at our church every Saturday. We complained every single time. This forced us to act ‘generously’ to the people around us. Since it was not of our free will, our otherwise freely given generosity disappeared. Still today true generosity proves difficult for me because of my experiences as a kid. This recurring idea of forcing generosity, in turn, makes future generations less likely to act generously and freely.

Acting generously means acting humbly and gratefully with what one has. This helps someone to see how much privilege they hold. Seeing the privilege in someone's life will help highlight how much they have to give up so that they can act generously to the less fortunate. Similar to giving a large and expensive Christmas gift without expecting one in return, generosity comes without retaliating expectations. Generosity means giving up something freely, like time, money, talents, or even someone’s life, that could benefit one’s self personally, and instead, giving it to others to benefit them.