Share This If Your Parents Taught You Anything

What’s the first thing your parents taught you as a child? Okay, besides being potty trained and how to properly eat. Okay, also besides how to dress yourself and bathe yourself. It could’ve come either before or after learning not to cross the street without looking both ways and don’t talk to strangers. It just depends what kind of parents they were—not saying they were good or bad, just saying they may have prioritized things in a certain way. Okay, so this wasn’t the first thing your parents taught you, but it surely was one of the first.

What is it you ask? SHARING. That’s right, sharing. From a young age we all are taught to share with one another. “No, that’s my toy!” Too bad you need to give the other kids their turn with it—even if it is yours.

“That’s my apple!” Sorry kid, you need to cut it in half and share with your sibling. “That’s my Sunny D!” You may have poured it, but that doesn’t mean somebody else can’t have a swig, so share it. These are some of the earliest lessons we all get in sharing.

Sharing is caring, so they say. It’s better to give than to receive, I’ve been told. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, seems cliché, but is all too true. We’ve been bombarded with the ideology to share, share and share some more. It’s a strong message, but quite honestly is far from the truth anymore.

In America, the richest 1% own over a third of the country’s wealth with the next 19% owning the next 50% of wealth. That means 80% of Americans are sharing just 20% of the wealth this nation of opportunity has to offer. Now, this certainly isn’t a lesson in finance, and certainly not saying these wealthy people need to just start writing checks for underemployed savages such as myself, but it can be said that these lessons in sharing seem to just go away as we grow older.

When you’re younger every time you turn around you’re being told you need to share whatever it is that you may be in possession of at the moment. You may “own” something or the idea of something, but not to the point you can’t “spread the wealth.” Likewise, as we grow older these windows of sharing slowly dwindle until they’re completely shut. “This is my car.” “This is my room.” “This is my property.” “This is my money!”

So, how can we as a society bring back the sharing mantra? Where does sharing come back into our lives? How can we spread this message of good deed? Well, the solution starts here, and it’s much easier than you may think.

Wait? This is supposed to be a lesson in sharing and nothing has said anything yet. Where is this going? That’s precisely the point. Where is this thing going? What are you going to do about it? Think back to the title—“Share This If Your Parents Taught You Anything”—well, go on then. Now is the time. You have so many options: all in the name of sharing.

Confused? Don’t be. It’s easy. Find you favorite social network, click the share button and post the story link. There you have it! You’ve gotten back into touch with your roots and your parents upbringing was not done in vain. You’ve shared something with the world, and surely that should make you feel good.

Consider this: you’ve received a beautiful piece of literature on behalf of this publication, so to prevent yourself from being trapped on the bitter end of the aforementioned old cliché, you need to give this away. Don’t keep it to yourself. We know how wonderful this is and that you want to relish in these words all by yourself. But, that’s not the name of the game (i.e. story). You’ve got to pay it all forward and do your parents one proud—SHARE.