What insightful reflections from our bright summer interns who shared on our first weeks theme: Generosity.  During our call, we discussed the wealth we experience when we give unconditionally, truly giving without seeking anything in return, and how this helps us to undo the patterns of greed we may have unconsciously built up.  We touched questions around how we each practice generosity, what prevents us from giving, how to move from 'me' to 'we', to how well we receive generosity.
 
Mira shared that she practices generosity by doing random acts of kindness and likes this form of generosity.  She was handing out sandwiches to homeless people and despite being met with doubt, judgment and skepticism from peers at school she continued to practice giving because it brings her a lot of joy.  She hopes her peers will one day experience that joy for themselves too.  Often we have fears around giving and for Nilay he met that fear head on. When he asked his father to help him with his random act of kindness for the day, his father suggested he pick a card from the smile deck and the card he choose was to talk to five different strangers. His initial thought was to ask if he could choose another, but bravely went a head with the task.  He choose to talk to people he did not know at school and noticed how the fear of speaking to strangers started dissipating, even when when he wasn't met with the response he was expecting if someone hadn't noticed him. Instead, Nilay decided to greet the next person even more openly and enthusiastically.

Receiving generosity brought up mixed feelings for the interns, for Priyal, while at Starbucks- purchasing a drink to pay forward for another, she incidentally actually fell a little short in the amount owed, and had the barista and a by-stander both eager and 'fighting' to chip in to help pay for the drink! This left Priyal feeling grateful and gracefully accepted their expression generosity as well. For others, receiving generosity can sometimes be a little more challenging, one of the interns reflected on the question and shared this-- “ Sometimes I feel guilty when receiving generosity because I think about how much the other person may need generosity in their life”-- Another intern reflected and noted that--- The *real* way I receive generosity is try to think of ways I can pay it back/pay it forward, but that's not really something you can give back immediately. Unfortunately we missed Vishesh on the call itself, but he was real busy practicing and spreading generosity throughout the week! While attending Awakin Wednesday in Santa Clara, he jumped right in to help serve food to all 65 attendees. And later in the week he volunteered at Karma Kitchen where a mother of one of his high school classmates was also volunteering. He learned that it was her birthday, and without skipping a beat he got the whole restaurant to sing her 'Happy birthday!' to her! Truly inspirational group of interns this summer! Looking forward to more stories, insights and growth unfolding with them over the next few weeks to come! Below again a depiction of all the smiles these inspirations bring to us!