Give and Take

As a child I gave away a lot of toys as a way I now recognize as trying to buy friendships. As I grew older I found that I was still a generous giver, but after a while when the giving was not returned in a relationship I would burn out on giving and pull away from the friendship which seemed unbalanced and thus draining. I find that later in life I now gravitate to friendships where there is an equal balance of give and take. The higher ground would be to give with no strings attached and I am getting better at that although I still have a ways to go. I am also getting better at saying no to those who are predominantly takers when I cannot get to the place of giving altruistically because it doesn't feel good to be used. There is probably a paradox here in learning to be generous in giving, but not always.