Here’s one of my favorite stories:
A traveling salesman started up a conversation with a stranger at the airport. The stranger was relocating from another city. "Where are you from?", he asked. "Seattle", the man replied. "How did you find the people there to be?" the salesman asked. "They were rude and lazy and boring", the stranger replied. He asked the salesman what people were like in this new city. "You will probably find the same thing here,'’ the salesman answered.

An hour later, the salesman had a similar conversation at the same airport, but with a new stranger. This time it was a man relocating from Alaska. "How did you find the people there to be?" the salesman asked. "They were all wonderful, friendly, helpful and kind," this second stranger replied. He, too, then asked the salesman what people were like in this new city. The salesman replied as before, "You will probably find the same thing here."

Give more, take less
You really can’t control how much you get from life. No matter what you do right, no matter how hard or how smart you work at something, the quality and degree of what comes back to you is not guaranteed. I think that is why so many people feel helpless. They’re only looking at what they get, which none of us has any real control over. What we do have complete control over, however, is how much we give.

Here’s another of my favorite stories:
A little boy, who wasn’t very popular at school, spent all evening sorting through a box of valentine cards, careful to include every name from the list of classmates that his teacher had passed out. The next day, the little boy brought his own hand-made valentine mailbox home from school and set it on the kitchen table. To his mother’s dismay, it was empty. He hadn’t gotten one valentine from any of the other children.

"Not one, not even one!" he said, as his mother began to cry. "I didn’t forget one, I got all of the names!" he said cheerfully. He was not sad, because all that mattered to him was what he could give.

Look for the good, and that is what you will find. Giving is its own reward.

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