I
t’s nice that we all appreciate each other, I suppose, but I think many of us are a little too easy on ourselves.
The notion that everybody’s contribution counts, that it doesn’t matter what you can do so long as you share your gifts, is a good one when it encourages people to step up to the plate and discover a capacity to give that they didn’t know they had. To find ways to engage with their community that they otherwise wouldn’t, or think they couldn’t.
Too often, however, it’s used as an excuse to half-ass a commitment we don’t really want to make. To say “I’ve done enough” when we’ve hardly done anything we’re capable of.
Here are some activities that don’t actually qualify as “gifts,” no matter how much you think of yourself: