Make Sure You Give Back

Make sure you give back.

Such a common phrase, such a polite idea.

And so insidious.

Give....

Give to your profession. Make sure you mentor new people, write, speak, attend or conferences, peer review, edit, serve on those local/regional/national/international committees, give up your nights, weekends, and everything else. No of course there is no honorarium. This should be part of your passion.

Give at the office. You should be donating to your workplace or at minimum to things your workplaces tells you to support. Let us help you set up that monthly deduction so it comes right out of your paycheck. Also we need you to toss in extra for this other initiative.

Give to anywhere you ever attended for education. And make sure it isn't restricted in any way that keeps it from being used on a new stadium. Your donation will go towards that suite where we'll host other people we ask for money. More important people. Not you.

Give to your politicians. Who cares that the money seems to disappear at a grand scale and be drowned in other money from old white dudes.

Give to your craft. You should be donating yarn, patterns, knitted objects, and money to all of these things. What do you mean you aren't only knitting for charity? Or for me, for free. You have all that yarn. I just want a cabled, personally designed, laceweight sweater. In cashmere.

Give to culture centers. It's never enough that you buy a ticket or a membership, you should also always be making regular constant donations to these organizations. And attend their special fundraisers. And bring all of your friends and tell them they must donate too.

Give to all of the charities, events, topics. Time, money, Twitter feed. Make sure everything gets equal representation.

Give to the people around you. You're a woman, you're supposed to be nurturing and caring. You're supposed to want to spend your time in a hostile situation cleaning it up and making sure it is done in such a way that no one feels threatened or challenged. Oh that's just something you do innately.

Mentor.
Hand over money.
Hand over time.
Teach.
Do it for ME
Serve on committees
Peer Review
Give to this scholarship fund
Put in time on this project
Organize this event.

It's just this one thing. You're so good at it. We need someone clear headed. It's part of how you build community. It's part of how you move us forward. As a favor. Just one more time. But there's no one else we can call. It's for a good cause. We need a 95% donation rate. We just need $1. It'll only take five minutes.

Don't you dare be selfish or for others to shoulder the load. Don't imagine a day where you won't face 15 new waiting demands. Don't want someone to have sorted things so you just have to show up. Don't expect anyone else to clean up the mess. You should give *more* so you can clean up the disaster they left us.


Make sure you give back.