The man who is selfish with one thousand dollars will not develop angelic wings of generosity when his million comes. If the generous spirit be a reality with the individual, instead of an empty boast, he will, every hour, find opportunity to make it manifest. The radiation of kindness need not be expressed in money at all. It may be shown in a smile of human interest, a glow of sympathy, a word of fellowship with the sorrowing and the struggling, an instinctive outstretching of a helping hand to one in need.

No man living is so poor that he cannot evidence his spirit of benevolence toward his fellowman. It may assume that rare and wondrously beautiful phase of divine charity, in realizing how often a motive is misrepresented in the act, how sin sorrow and suffering have warped and disguised latent good, in substituting a word of gentle tolerance for some cheap tinsel of shabby cynicism that pretends to be wit. If we are not rich enough to give ‘cold, hard’ cash, let us at least be too rich to give ‘cold, hard’ words. Let us leave our air-castles of vague self adulation for so wisely spending millions we have never seen, and rise to the dignity of living up to the full proportion of our possessions, no matter how slight they may be. Let us fill the world around us with love, brightness, sweetness, gentleness, helpfulness, courage and sympathy, as if they were the only legal tender and we were Monte Cristos with untold treasures of such gold ever at our call.

Let us cease saying: ‘If I were’ and say ever: ‘I am.’ Let us stop living in the subjunctive mood, and begin to live in the indicative.” ~ William George Jordan

You cannot give what you don’t have. That said, most people underestimate what they possess. We live in an era where one’s estate is measured more by financial and material possessions than by spiritual resources and most people, whose minds are conditioned by this overarching societal value system, tend to overlook items of real value in their personal inventories.

If you notice yourself thinking or speaking in the subjunctive mood, as Mr. Jordan described, stop and ask yourself if you might be able to change moods mid-thought or mid-sentence. Rather than continuing in the thought and wishing for something that is not yet a reality, ask yourself instead, “what do I have, here and now, that I can give?”

When you start making a lot from a little, not in the negative sense as in “much ado about nothing” but in the positive, constructive sense, you begin to realize how much resource is actually at hand. There is typically much more available than most assume or recognize.

The same holds true in your dealings with others. Given that they are likely subject to the same tendency, they are probably in the habit of underestimating themselves. They hold limiting assumptions about their own resources and capabilities and every friend, parent, mentor or boss is wise to assist those around him to unearth those buried treasures.

Human beings at every point in history are immensely more capable than they tend to reveal themselves to be.

“Let us fill the world around us with love, brightness, sweetness, gentleness, helpfulness, courage and sympathy, as if they were the only legal tender and we were Monte Cristos with untold treasures of such gold ever at our call.”