Never Taking More Than You Give

I stumbled across a video of a friend of mine talking about his life in his 20s at an open mic event. He talked about his mid-20s, his background stories, taking a career break, and finally finding his calling.

Watching him speak intrigued me. I’ve never really thought about finding my calling! Throughout my life, I’ve always gone with the flow. I know what I want to do, but that’s it. It’s not something serious or something big. It’s not something that I did with a purpose.

Looking back, I believe it’s just something to do with my greed.

So I took a step back, at least tonight, to rethink my life’s purposes. Many questions popped into my head:

• What do I want to do in life?
• Am I doing well right now?
• After this, what’s next?
• Is what I do so far what I really wanted to do?
• Have I found my calling?

The last question stunned me. Other than doing something “fun,” I don’t really know what my calling is. What I know is, I want to do something other than for my own self.

Suddenly, I remembered this one open-source creator that my dad told me about a long time ago (he’s a computer geek, he knows many trivial things) who left his note as a blessing. The text was written 23 years ago and still hits me if I read it again. Here it is :

May you do good and not evil

May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others

May you share freely, never taking more than you give

It’s written in the main header of the SQLite file. SQLite is the most used database engine in the world. Most of us don’t know it, but it’s there.

It’s fascinating to see that someone who made such a valuable impact on the world still considers things other than money, or power. It reminds me that perhaps there’s something other than fulfilling my own personal desires that benefits me and only me that I can do! Perhaps I should leave a bigger portion to give out to others. Just like what the document says, never taking more than you give. 🙂