In the fall after our first child was born, we planned a romantic dinner out for our anniversary. Our friends Chrischona and Koudjo came over to watch Sam, and Cliff and I escaped to a lovely restaurant (not the one pictured above ... but wouldn't you like to have a romantic dinner there?) for an evening out that didn't involve diaper bags and rice cereal.
The restaurant was crowded: our table was just a few inches from the one next to us where a man in his 40s sat dining by himself. But the room was candlelit, and so we quickly forgot our next door neighbor and became in absorbed in our own conversation.
A few minutes into the meal, Cliff had a surprise for me: he had hotel reservations for us downtown, and an overnight bag in the trunk of our car. Chrischona and Koudjo were staying the night with Sam. It was a lovely surprise, and a second surprise followed closely after.
When it was time to pay the waiter asked us, "Don't you want another glass of wine? Coffee? Dessert?" We insisted that we were ready to go, and would like the check.
"It's been covered already," the waiter said. "The man sitting next to you says to tell you Happy Anniversary."
We have no idea who that man was, or why he decided to be so generous that evening. But I do know that his gift made us more generous: we bought an anniversary meal for some friends of ours a few months later.
Yesterday I read some research on generosity on Katya's Non-Profit Marketing Blog. The author cites the findings of some new research from The Journal of Happiness Studies:
"Gratitude may cause individuals to transfer the goodwill they previously received to people other than their benefactors, because they no longer differentiate the group of benefactors from others."What does that mean for marriage? In the case of our anniversary dinner, our benefactor's gesture gave us a sense of goodwill we passed on to others. In the case of your every day relationship, being generous to one another (buying the type of ice cream he likes, even though it contains walnuts; putting gas in her car; volunteering to do the dishes even though you cooked) may not just be good for your marriage - it could be good for the world. Or at least your outlook on the world.
Do you have your own story of generosity-gone-wild? Give it some thought today, or start your own generosity epidemic by doing something good for a loved one or stranger. It might just change the world.
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Side note: the photo above is from El Convento, a lovely restaurant and hotel in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico.
I'm honored that we made it into your blog :). That really was such an amazing anniversary story...inspiring me to think of something fun to do for a stranger...and for my husband.
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