When you do something for someone and expect them to do the same for you, you’re on the wrong track. Because, you see, they never could. But look behind you, someone else may be paying it back, or may have paid it back before you even extended your generous hand.
Woody Hayes summed it best in so few words:
“You can never pay back; but you can always pay forward.”
We’ve heard it all before. Even seen it onscreen in Warner Brothers’ adaptation of Catherine Ryan Hyde’s novel, Pay It Forward, where a 12-year-old schoolboy sets out to complete a school project to change the world by doing a good deed for three people, eventually creating a charity pyramid.
We’ve experienced it all before. Everyone of us who has a mother. Yes, she, who never thinks twice about feeding us the last piece of bread so we won’t feel hunger even if her own stomach is grumbling; who would strip off her last piece of clothing to keep us warm; who would walk barefoot to buy us the designer shoes we want so much.
She, who risked her life so we would live.
And she never asked for anything in return. And you know you would never try to pay it back, because you never can.
And so you try to give the same amount of love to your children. Or other people’s children. Or people who are no longer children but who need your love and charity. Because your mother showed you how.
But don’t expect all those people you’ve helped to pay you back. They will have their own mothering to do.
Pay it forward. The concept of motherhood.
Technorati Tags: mother, motherhood, pay it forward, catherine ryan hyde, woody hayes, charity
Powered by ScribeFire.
Tags: catherine ryan hyde, charity, mom, mother, mother's day, motherhood, pay it forward, woody hayes
