What Of Spilled Milk

"There's nothing wrong with the younger generation that becoming taxpayers won't cure." - Dan Bennett

Short and sweet today...it is tax season and I have just recently completed this annual ritual. It is normally not too bad and I see it as just one of those things in life that needs to be done.

The days of being carefree and knowing my father would take care of it are long gone. I think back and forget at times just how good it was during that period of my life. Not too many things to worry about in those early days.

Life continues and we finish school, get a job, and buy a house. There are school loans to pay, maybe we start having kids, investments and things change. yes, life moves forward and it makes us wonder if all this is worth it.

Well it is.

Life does get better as we move forward and at the same time life seems to get more complicated. It is all part of the process of living. There is an idiom, "death and taxes are the only two guarantees in life." Maybe it is a good thing to just accept it now.

Resolve to know this and choose to live your life to its fullest.

I can not make taxes go away. I can not keep death from occurring. What I can do is live my life doing all those things which make it a great life. Connecting with other people, giving and making their lives great.

Doing so makes my life great.

I try not to sweat the small things or the things which are insignificant in the grand scheme of life. My suggestion to you is to not allow those things to get in the way and consume the greater parts of your life.

If you do not it will leave less time to enjoy what matters most; family, friends, love and being part of our time before death occurs. Don't get me wrong, earning money, raising children, taxes and all these things are important.

But know the little arguments we have with each other, the person cutting in line on the freeway or spilled milk are just things getting in the way of enjoying life.

Do not cry over these things.

Wipe up the broken pieces and move on. Forgive the other person or yourself and move on. Smile with grace and move on from the small things. Death and taxes might be inevitable, but so is a great life if you allow it into your world.

Stay inspired my friends!

Give Without Expectation

"When I chased after money, I never had enough. When I got my life on purpose and focused on giving of myself and everything that arrived into my life, then I was prosperous."

~Wayne Dyer~

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United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form 8283

Noncash Charitable Contributions

Contributions From Which You Benefit

If you receive a benefit as a result of making a contribution to a qualified organization, you can deduct only the amount of your contribution that is more than the value of the benefit you receive.

In ex; you pay $65 for a ticket to a dinner-dance at a church. All the proceeds of the function go to the church. The ticket to the dinner-dance has a fair market value of $25. When you buy your ticket, you know that its value is less than your payment. To figure the amount of your charitable contribution, you subtract the value of the benefit you receive ($25) from your total payment ($65). You can deduct $40 as a charitable contribution to the church.

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Even the U.S. government acknowledges that to gift something, there can be no benefit to you if it truly is a gift. The gift given can not result in you receiving anything in return of tangible value. If so, that portion of the gift can not be claimed on your taxes.

Thank goodness we don't get taxed on the intangible aspects of giving. Or at least until govenrment officials figure out how to tax one's heart. The intangible benefit to giving can fill one's heart and soul with greatness. A benefit that can not be measured or taxed for that matter.

Gifts to others can come in many different forms such as money, clothing, or services. I see gifting not only in those forms, but in the every day things I see others do. The holding of a door open for another person, the friendly hello or carrying the grocery bags of another. The gifts we give manifest themselves in the form of a smile or handshake.

A gift can even be in the acknowledgement of the other person. So many times we walk through our day glancing away from others. We glance away from the homeless, the jobless, the lonely or the hungry. We even glance away from those we work with or even love. Too many times we are afraid to acknowledge another because we 'might' be asked for more.

Good golly, we might need to help someone that is in need. We might even have to forgo our tired state and interact. Yet the act of giving when nothing in return is expected or even seemingly possible will give back more then you imagine. An overwhelming feeling of energy and happiness fills your being.

Psychology Today wrote, "We've all heard the old adage that it's better to give than to receive, but why this is so is less known. As will become clear, giving is a gift—not only to others, but to ourselves—because it increases the bond between us and the person to whom we have given, tells us about ourselves and generally increases our feelings of competence."

In religious terms (2 Corinthians 8 & 9), translators had used an
English word, ‘liberality’/’liberal’ (or ‘generous’ in later versions) which suggested the size or extent of the gift, to represent a Greek word haplotes/haplos, which really meant ‘sincere, simple, unaffected,’ and related to the heart attitude or motive of the giver.

So giving comes from the heart with no expectation in return. This giving comes in large ways such as huge sums of money or other assets. But the majority of giving comes in small, seemingly meaningless ways. It is the small gifts which can have such a large impact on someone's life. Their life gets impacted and in an almost undetectable way, we get impacted.

So give without expectation of getting anything in return. Give with your heart and make a difference in the life of someone. Watch your own life gain something greater and best of all, no one can place a tax on that.