30. Givers

Mile: 2,990

A while back I was in a counseling session and I learned about “givers” and “takers”. We all have them in our lives. People that give us life and people that take from us life. Rarely is a giver always a giver and rarely is a taker always a taker, they ebb and flow, but typically heavier on one side or the other. When you have two people that thrive while around each other, they typically are both givers for each other. Thus, you end up with great friends thriving. Givers are easy for us to be around. We seem to come alive when we are with people who play a heavier giver role in our lives. Our excitement level is higher. We exude more positive emotions. We are more likely to laugh, to be creative, and are overall more mentally healthy. When we are with someone who plays a heavier taker role in our lives we tend to be more drained. Our level of disappointment is noticed more frequently. We are more likely to be frustrated. We take on a more active teaching role to try and redirect the actions and words we don’t hold as valuable. We look for ways to retreat from the situation removing ourselves from some level of discomfort. Now, these are generalizations and are true to my life experiences. They are not taken from a psychology book or any of the millions of self help books titled, “How To Live Your Best Life”. But I have found this to be extremely accurate. It is important for us to have both givers and takers in our lives, they each play very important roles in developing us as healthy, selfless, and loving people.

That said, my week in Big Sky was a tall cold glass of water that I didn’t realize I was even thirsting for. My “I’ll stay for a day or two.” Quickly turned into, “I’ll be here for the whole week.” Sure it was nice to have a nightly hot shower with significant water pressure, temperature controlled, no limit of five gallons, and I didn’t have to worry about someone driving up the national forest gravel road and finding me standing there naked. That was nice. Also, the hot tub didn’t suck, the handful of couches with cushioned backs, ice cubes, four different private and clean toilets to choose from, and a host of other aspects were luxuries about staying there. But what made that time in Big Sky so special and gave me an overflowing cup of joy was spending seven days surrounded by givers. The first night there I found myself surrounded by four friends who I’ve known for over six years now. The kind of friends who can look at your face and they see what’s behind your eyes. The kind of friends who have earned the right to ask the hard questions and have earned the right to receive the hard answers. Just sitting in their presence gave me life. Ohhh to be known. 

I meet new people everyday while I’m on the road. Funny people. Positive people. Sad people. People of all different religions and sects of religions. All kinds of kinds. It’s exciting meeting new people and feeling the newness of learning about them. Every interaction is a miniature adventure, which gives me life. I love it. But sitting in that circle of friends who know me on a deeper level, it was difficult for me to express the joy, the life that I was receiving. That was a highlight moment for me in this trip. It didn’t involve a mountain peak, or a twenty plus inch trout, or a face to face encounter with a moose. But it was a moment that found it’s way to the list of highlights.