Promise #67: Regiveaway joy (A giveaway for you)
- Jun, 14 2011
- By Tracey
- Joy, Kindness
- 9 Comments
A joy that’s shared is a joy made double.
-American ProverbI am a big fan of joy. Who isn’t? Sure there’s that cranky old witch or warlock who lives on the corner of Such & Such Street who’s never smiled a day in your life. There’s that person. But who else? Thinking. T-h-i-n-k-i-n-g.
T—h—i—n———k———i———n———g.
Stumped? Me, too. I’m always in the mood for a little joy. It’s as free as a smile. It’s as genuine as child’s giggle. It’s soda-through-your-nose funny. Tears streaming from your eyes grateful. It’s easy to find, fun to remember, lovely to pass on. As if that’s not enough, it’s really the perfect antidote to all things joyless. No need to talk about those things today.
Let’s focus on the regive
This is not the same as a regift, mind you. Regift=bad. Regive=good, all good.
Think of the things worth regiving: sage advice, contagious laughter, pure honesty, deep love, hope, patience, kindness, courage, strength. Dig through a bottomless bag of virtues and you’ll find more worth the regive. More worth the share. While each is very different the end result is shockingly similar—it is joy.
Enter Regiving
A few months ago, Amanda Oaks of Kind Over Matter fame invited me to be a part of her Seven Souls One Musing interview series. Tickled pink, I signed on. All I needed to do was share a story about an experience that made me laugh to the core. Easy peasy? Not so. I realized there have been many.
There was that time I jumped in a crazy cab in NYC. My first week on the job. Leaving my “welcome” happy hour. Trying to catch a bus at Port Authority. The cab was chased by the cops to the center of Times Square. The cab driver spent the entire ride begging me to help him get off the hook. He forgot to turn on his occupied light, but I think there was more to his story. Not funny then, funny now.
There was that other time I yelled “TRAIIIIIIIIIIIIIN” when my 16-year-old-spanking-new-driver-brother drove over train tracks with no train in sight. Yes, he beat me senseless while driving with one hand of the wheel, but I didn’t mind cause I was too busy laughing.
And then there was that time that I wrote about on Amanda’s blog…which is now in her ebook along with 29 other funny stories written by 29 amazing contributors.
And now the Regiveaway
If you click the ebook link above you can see everything that Amanda managed to tuck inside this amazing collaboration of stories. There are a total of 60 stories, along with inspiring, downloadable art.
Each contributor shared stories of laughter and kindness. I had the pleasure of reading through the book and I can tell you I was blown away. The kindness stories are unbelievably touching. The laughter stories are laugh-out-loud funny. The art work is very cool.
While I was thrilled to contribute to this I must admit, I was just more taken away at the power of joy and how that power manifests itself when it’s shared.
I want to regiveaway that joy to you.
It’s simple…very simple: share a story or a note in the comments below that will bring joy to someone’s world. It can be a story about anything, but one that will provide truth to the proverb above: a joy that’s shared is a joy made double. That’s it. I’ll choose a random (seroiusly random) winner on Sunday, June 19, 2011, at noon. You’ll need to be a Twisted Pinky email subscriber to win (so if you’re not already a subscriber sign up here).
And if you can’t wait until Sunday, then by all means buy your book today. It would make a wonderful Father’s Day, graduation, thinking-of-you gift. It would also be an amazing gift for you to give yourself. Really. When’s the last time you did that?
Share your story today. I can’t wait to read it!
_____________
Artwork by Amanda Oaks. Disclosure: Please note that, although I was totally stoked to contribute to Regiving, I was also stoked to sign up as an affiliate. This means that if you purchase the book through the link provided in this post, I will receive a commission from Kind Over Matter. It’s probably worthy to note that not one word of this post would change if I were not an affiliate earning commission. The book rocks, plain and simple. When you win it, you’ll know.
Andi
Love this! Such a sweet and funny (and a bit scary!) story about NYC. Absolutely ADORE the Regiving book – isn’t Amanda fantastic?
Thx again for posting, you rock!
-Andi
Tracey
Hi Andi-thanks for spending some time here at Twisted Pinky. You’re right…the NYC event was a bit scary (to say the least).
And Amanda? She is all gold.
Richard
Screaming “train” was not funny!
(she screamed in a blood-curdling, top-of-her-voice, horror-filled, dead-serious way……..still dont know where it came from……..I thought a train was plowing into us……DEF NOT FUNNY!)
Kylie Pepyat-Fowler
Background info: My 4 year old and his friend are off and on friends. One minute they’re best friends and the next they’re not.
One day I invited the friend from Kinder (Pre-school) over for a play. After an hour or so of having much fun playing together, the friend said ” I’m your best friend now”, to which my son replied, “welcome back buddy”.
It was so funny to hear my little boy come up with something so grown up. Looking back, I also see how sweet it was.
I so love the innocence of children.
Kyles =D
Promise #68: Plan a rocking Father’s Day in 7 steps | Twisted Pinky
[...] arrives at six.I hope you all have a mutha of a day. It’s not too late to enter the Regiveaway. The random drawing is on Sunday. Enter to receive you’re FREE copy of Regiving today. [...]
MCatherine
Sadie, I love the “ice cream and cereal” comment…I’m still smiling.
When my son was a baby, I read a newspaper article reporting ‘boat-people’ from Viet Nam brought some influenza with them for which children in the US had no resistence.
According to the article, the virus was caught through hand contact, so I resolved to wear rubber gloves while grocery shopping. When I told my husband about the plan he started ranting that he would ‘not be married to a Howard Hughesette!’
So the next morning after finishing the breakfast dishes, he asked me to help him get my hot pink rubber gloves off his hands. I smiled and said, “Well, since you’re already wearing the gloves, you can do the grocery shopping.” That’s when he began doing what I call his ‘duck walk of exasperation’. So, just to push his button one more time, when he climbed into bed that night, guess what I was wearing?
Brandy
My 9 year old daughter, Sadie, is one of the funniest, most precocious children I’ve ever met. Her comments brighten my days more than I can put into words. But, really, her words are better than mine.
She is (for 3 more months!) an only child. Last week she came up to me and asked me to guess which hand her crystal was in. I guessed “the right hand” and she giddily told me that I was wrong. Walking back out of the room, she remarked, “This is funner, playing with actual people that don’t know, than playing with dolls – that act like they don’t know, but they do.”
About a month ago she told my friend, Meghan, “If I was a bird, I would fly around but still stay in your sight! I would have my brain, but not such a big head. You could tell which one was me if there were other birds because I would have on clothes.”
And the day before my husband left for Army basic training last fall, she came up to me, placed her hand gently on my back and asked, “Mom, are you going to be up for cooking tomorrow, or should we have ice cream and cereal for dinner?”
Tracey
Oh, man, Sadie is hysterical. I hope you’re keeping her thoughts and Sadie-isms in a journal they are too precious! I was smiling all the way, but the ice cream and cereal had me laughing out loud. Thanks for sharing. And thanks for the heads-up on the link. It’s all fixed now. Good luck!
Tracey
Congratulations, Brandy! You won!!!