The Gift of Giving
Did you know at one time - a long, long, long, time ago - that listeners could charge on 7 Cups? When we went through YC, we thought that was going to be how 7 Cups was going to generate revenue to help cover the bills. What happened was that .01% of people charged and 99.9% of listeners did not charge.
Listeners very clearly communicated to us that 7 Cups was to be a 100% volunteer based service. People were going to give of their time out of the goodness of their hearts. They did not want to be compensated. Listeners were committed to freely giving the gift of compassion.
Since that time, listeners have given gifts of compassion - imagine them as little wrapped gift boxes ššš - to millions upon millions of people all around the world. We now have 20,000 conversations on 7 Cups a day. That is a lot of gift giving!
Giving a gift feels amazing. Some of you are excellent gift givers. You pay attention. You see what someone needs, and then you give them the gift and they are delighted to receive it because it fills a need they have. The old saying āgiving is better than receivingā is true and anyone that has given a gift knows this to be accurate.
On 7 Cups, people come and they ask for help. That is what happens when a general or personal request is made. That request is an ask - it is an indication of a need to connect, a need to be heard, a need to be understood, a need to be seen, a need to be validated, a need to feel less alone. Our listeners pick up these chats, they answer those requests, and when they do, they give a gift to our members. A gift of listening.
Think about that space between a member and a listener. The request is sent out from our app on a phone on one side of the planet. The listener, on the other side of the world, sees the username and the issue and selects them. They connect - strangers that do not know one another - and they start talking. The member begins to open up and shares some of what is causing them pain. The listener paraphrases, tries to see the world through their eyes, and says this back to the member in their own words. In that space between, something remarkable happens, the listener gives the gift of compassion - out of the goodness of their own heart - and the person feels loved, understood, and cared for.
That is a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, and remarkable thing.
Fast forward to February 2021. I finally - after years and years of trying to understand what we are doing on 7 Cups - see 7 Cups as an ecosystem. I share this idea with a friend, a medical anthropologist, and he says, āGlen, this is a system of reciprocity or what Marcel Mauss calls a gift economy.ā I have never heard of this before and immediately Iām excited to learn that 7 Cups can be understood through another lens that I cannot yet see through.
I do all this research on Mauss, gift economies/exchanges, and consult with my friend to better understand what we are doing. Long story short, with zero planning or deliberate building, we have accidentally recreated an ancient pattern called a gift economy where social bonds and connections are primary. Where this gift of compassion is shared from leaders to listeners and listeners to members and members to other members, listeners, and people in their life. On any given day, we have tens of thousands of compassion gifts circulating around the 7 Cups community. A good conversation, a WTG in a sharing circle, a shout out, a spotlight - all of these are gifts going round and round 7 Cups.
One interesting thing about the Kula tribe and their conception of a gift is that it becomes heavier or more valuable as it passes from one person to the next. Imagine our gift boxes of compassion circulating. Someone sends a gift to me about how awesome a listener or mentor is. I hear this and send it over to the community management team - hey I just received this message and think this person is great. They then send it over to the mentor and say hey great job! And so on. That gift of compassion becomes heavier with each person it touches. It becomes more meaningful.
7 Cups differ from the Kula tribe and ancient societies in a number of ways. We are based on the Internet, so we have unintentionally layered on a digital approach to gift economies. Also, if you watch that ecosystem video, then youāll see that each party gets something and each party gives something naturally.
I wanted to share this gift economy model with you, because when I learned of it I was struck by its significance and how much more substantial it makes our work. Like someone in the desert sweeping off the top of a pyramid and then seeing the rest of it under the sand. We, collectively, have swept off an ancient - and beautiful - pattern of relating to one another.
We give gifts to one another on 7 Cups. It is a beautiful practice. Beautiful isnāt the right word. It is more than that.
Thank you listeners for being the first gift givers. Thank you for giving to me and many others millions of times. Thank you or helping us rediscover things we have forgotten.
A couple of questions to consider:
When you read the above (or watch the videos or read the links), what stands out to you about 7 Cups and gift giving?
How can we strengthen our gift economy even more? (Iāll share more on this in another post and weave in comments from this thread).
With gratitude,
Glen
Condensed response here-rhis may have already been expressed, but giving a piece of yourself to another in need, in itās self, is a form of healing. It is also healing for the giver. Passing on knowledge.. understanding, ..knowing exactly how another is feeling and how to listen to their plight.. experience or general emotional struggle, creates a bond .. especially if it is grown from the need for purity in the act of supporting another in need. - so meaningful on each end.
@BellaHealy2010 I totally agree - it is healing for the giver! Thank you for sharing your thoughts here!
@GlenM
Im now facing a situation where the person im giving to osnt give anthing back and actually cuts me off when I try to give... so I think as everything in life, this is relative. giving ones self to someone should have boundaries based on ones own self care.
@GlenM
What stands out to you?
The effect that the internet has and how it changes the dynamics of giving. I'm sure that, in ancient times, these gifts were given to and by people who had a face to face connection at some point. With the benefit of the internet, we are able to connect with people from all over the world. In my opinion, is really highlights just how special what we have on Cups really is: 2 people on an entire planet can connect solely because there is a 'need'. The gifts that are exchanged between those two people create a special bond. That's the part that's amazing to me.
In reference to your second question, I think more projects like the Tuplip awards would be great. If I understand how that project works correctly, a nomination is an anonymous gift that is given, as a token of appreciation. There's no pressure to nominate someone, no being asked to do so (unlike ratings and reviews) and there's no expectation of receiving one (Listeners give with no expectation in return). It's another way to anonymously give the gift of appreciation. I think increasing awareness of this project and creating others similar to it would be a fun way to encourage gift giving on Cups (with no expectations attached).
Thank you for opening this space and beginning this conversation š
~ Sher
I apologize for having to create another post. I just remembered that you like examples of our ideas š
So to round out my proposal to have more projects like Tulip awards, I would like to share the following:
In school, we had a thing called "Candygrams" that were sent anonymously to others. They were sweet messages of encouragement or appreciation. I'm not sure how the 'delivery system' would be on Cups, but the creation method could look something like this: either a button on the user profile OR a button on the menu list that would take people to a 'fill in' form page. That page would ask for the recipient's name of the Candygram, and have a list of pre-approved, short messages to select from. Messages that are positive and supportive, such as "Thank you for supporting me", "I believe in you", "Good job!", "You deserve a cookie today!", or "Keep going, you've got this!". Basically, enter the name, select your message and send.
I have no idea, due to IT factors, this is something that could be done here but I can tell you that sometimes receiving anonymous words of kindness is all it takes to lift someone up, brighten their day, or provide encouragement for them to keep on sharing their gifts with others.
~ Sher
@Sher217 thank you for these ideas! Would the candygrams be anonymous?
And, yes, the intenet is this remarkable medium. I'm glad we get to be pioneers in how to help use it for pro-social and compassionate goals. That in and of itself feels like a gift to me.
7cups is amazing and the gift is something that keeps giving. I personally love 7 cups and its awesome for ppl of limited funds to have a safe place to go. Wish I had this opportunity as a kid in the 1970s. Thank you 7cups!! ABBš
@GlenM
I joined 7 Cups during a time when I was starting to feel the effects of the isolation around the pandemic. I had been a hospice volunteer and missed that feeling of connection with others. Quite by accident I came across 7 Cups, and I have been volunteering ever since. It's been rewarding, and I enjoy every hour that I give, interacting with others and hopefully lifting them up in an encouraging and supportive way. I am blessed by a few beautiful humans who have continued to share with me over a longer time frame, and this makes the journey even more personally fulfilling. I am honored to be part of such a meaningful venture.
@MidwesternCalmSeeker we are honored to have you as a part of our community! Thank you for serving others. Also, I hadn't thought of it before, but the parallels to hospice make a lot of sense. Can you share more on the similarities for you and how what you've learned in that environment might translate here?
@GlenM I do like to volunteer in general, and have done so in a variety of ways. I enjoy being of support and encouragement, and 7 Cups has allowed me to interact with so many awesome people. When I was doing hospice visit, I knew I was there to distract from the person's situation and hopefully invoke a smile or too, listen to someone reminisce about better times, and hold their hand/give a hug when they felt low. Here, it's similar. Sometimes the chats are supportive, and other times I'm helping to make someone feel less alone. I've even got a few long term listeners who I consider virtual friends, which was an added bonus that I did not expect. I think I benefit as a listener as much as the members!
My 7 cups journey has been a blend of member and listener roles. Receiving the gift of support has been amazing. Met so many wonderful people though here. And now giving back as a listener. In today's world of social media and the negative influence on so many people I find this site a breath of fresh air. Like many others I am amazed this site exsists and the worldwide impact on emotional health. It is one thing I can give freely of my time- to simply listen compassionately to others.
This reminds me of life changing books Iāve read, āThe Art of Letting Go,ā and āThe Book of Joyā which was a comparison of similar teachings different religions or Saints had such as the Dali Lama, Arch Bishop, St. Francis, etc. These books helped remind me to focus on similarities rather than differences and opened my eyes just enough for me to understand I was not worthless at all, and by constantly treating myself as āless than,ā I only prevented myself from being able to help others. And in doing this, I only felt more worthless because I wasnāt able to help others- a viscous cycle! As people we have all experienced pain- pain, regardless of the cause, gives us the ability to empathize with others. And various religions & cultures offer the same teachings: it is only by getting out of one's head/self-forgetting, that one will find, and each act of compassion is what is capable of changing world. If I have found relief from a problem Iāve had in the past, I must pass on my experience, strength, and hope to others who ask for help, in order to keep the lessons Iāve learned in my life alive. So it is a gift to be of service to others in need, because the more I love others, the more I will love myself, and the more compassion I show others, the more compassionate Iāll be towards myself, and Vice versa. As humans, we're biologically programmed to be social beings, and can only grow as a society through connecting with others. The first societies in history developed when everyone had a job or Gift they could offer to the rest of the community, each of which filled a crucial role for their community's survival. Weāre biologically programmed to help each other, which means that we do truly need to give back, in whatever ways we can, because we will not be able to experience the joy and other wonderful emotions that Gift giving offers š.
@GlenM
This made me realize that at my age and with the life experiences I've had, I have positive messages I can share with others. Up through adolescents is about experimenting. Young adulthood is about learning from experiences. Middle age is for sharing our experiences with others. And old age- that's when I've found we can either choose to share the wisdom we've learned through life or choose to keep everything bottled up and as a result isolate ourselves from new information which only decreases our wisdom
