December and generosity. What giving looks like when it's not about money.

My son asked me once what the most generous thing was that someone had ever done for me. I thought about it seriously. The answer wasn't the most expensive gift or the grandest gesture. It was a Tuesday in 2006 when a colleague spent three hours helping me prepare for a meeting that had nothing to do with her work. She gave me her time and her attention, unprompted, when I needed them. That is still the most generous thing anyone has done for me.

Time. Attention. Practical help with something difficult. These are the three forms of generosity that are most felt and most remembered — by children and by adults. Money is useful but it doesn't produce the specific feeling of having been seen and helped. The seeing is the generosity. The giving follows from it.

My son's four-word description of the most generous thing done for him this year: 'She just showed up.' His friend had appeared, unannounced, at the specific hour when he needed help with something. Not because she had been told to. Because she had been paying attention. This is the specific thing that produces the change. The change comes from the practice. The practice comes from the decision to try it once, this