Saturday Six - Episode #389

"Autumn is finally here, but before I try to find a few fall colors to photograph, I wanted to post this week’s edition of the Saturday Six!

I hope you enjoy, and thanks for playing!

Be sure to check back this week and click on the links of bloggers who play along in the comments below! It’s a great way to find blogs you may not have visited and keep the conversation going!

Here are this week’s “Saturday Six” questions. Either answer the questions in a comment here, or put the answers in an entry on your blog… But don’t forget to leave a link to your blog so that everyone else can visit! Permission is not granted to copy the questions to message boards for the purpose of having members answer and play along there. Enjoy!"

1. Do you consider yourself more of a giver or a taker? I used to be much more of a taker when I was younger, a trait my mother passed on to me. It  was not a good trait, so over the years I have modified it a lot so that I'm much more evenly keeled. In some ways, emotionally, I'm more of a giver as a rule. It is with physical things that I needed to really work that out.

2. What is the biggest drawback to being whichever one you identify with? There is always a drawback. The drawbacks to being a taker are, I think, rather obvious and need no explanation. The drawback to being more emotionally giving is how fast that can drain my energy and positive side, when I am mired in someone else's misery. That is something where I need to keep that balance, or then I take on too much of the other person's distress.

3. If you had the chance to immediately become the opposite, would you take it? Why or why not? What, become a total taker? That would be rather like regressing instead of improving. And I would never allow myself to become a complete giver, because that to me is a lot like being a door mat. That would be completely contrary to my normal personality.

4. Take the quiz: Are You a Cheapskate? Unsurprisingly, I came up as You Are Incredibly Generous. Here is what else it threw in:

You are very giving when it comes to money. And it doesn't go unnoticed. Sharing the wealth makes you feel good, and you never want anyone to feel slighted by you. As long as you can afford it, being so generous is a very good thing!

Where I get in trouble is I usually can't afford it!

5. A woman approaches you in a shopping mall parking lot claiming she needs $1.00 to catch a bus. You see the bus turning into the mall parking lot at a distance, and you have a dollar bill. How likely are you to give it to her? Just a dollar? Absolutely, I would have no problem with that. I'd give it to her. If this was a 35-year-old woman who was $3.00 short, that would be different. If you know you need bus money, you would set that aside and keep it separate so you would not spend it. I'd start to question that at a higher dollar amount.

6. If it were up to you, how would you get more people to volunteer to help others? You know, as a general rule, no. I am a big giver in non-monetary ways - I'm a volunteer Emergency Medical Technician, which is not just giving back to the community and a good skill to have anywhere but I am also constantly keeping my certs current. It is a fair amount of time to do that. I also give each year when I clean out the house and this year, in the late summer after Irene went through Parsippany like a Mack truck, I donated about thirty bags of stuff - not just the easy clothing and bed clothes but also pots and pans, bathroom goods, food stuffs, all kinds of household things that anyone would want. I need to clean the house out anyway, true, but normally I might have thrown this stuff away rather than donating it (usually people don't need such basic things but a lot of Parsippany residents are homeless right now and their houses condemned. So it all went to my own townspeople.

"If you have a Reader’s Choice question you’d like to see asked (and answered), send me an email! I’d love to include it in a future edition of the Saturday Six."