With friends, as with family members (other than children and parents), care giving is not an inborn dharmic duty, which makes it extremely difficult to give money to friends in an appropriate way. I’m not saying that it can’t be done, just that it is extremely difficult.
If you offer something as treasured to you as your money to a needy friend to, say, pay her bills, you have not really done anything to make yourself, or her, more powerful. In fact, you may have created a problem for yourself—because from now on, whenever you see that person, whether you want to or not, many of you will remember the “gift,” and so will your friend. You will remember it in particular if you fall on some harder times somewhere down the road, especially if your friend is doing much better.
Money can forever alter the love in a friendship, so I do not recommend giving your monthly gift to friends.
To see just how powerful money is when it changes hands, try this experiment if you can. Walk up to the first person you see on the street (an ordinary stranger, not a panhandler) and try to hand that person a dollar bill. Note how you feel. How did he look at you? Did he take it? Did he say anything? How much anticipation (or dread) did you feel before giving him the dollar? Were you able to do it at all?
Now take another dollar bill and enter a place of worship. Locate the donation box and place the dollar in it. How did you feel this time? Did you say a prayer as you let that dollar drop? Did you feel better after making your offering? And there was no complicated reaction from the donation box, was there?
Compare how differently you felt after giving each “gift.” Most of us feel awkward handing money to a person (and most of us would also feel awkward being the recipient, which
should tell you something as well). Remember, the act of giving is meant to open you up, literally to alter how you feel; its power is rooted in your altered state. Most of us, too, feel a serenity when placing the donation in the box, for such a gift to charity is a pure one without the emotional baggage of giving to an individual person.
Regardless of how much money you have, it is the natural tendency of the mind to think: I can’t give money this month, I don’t even have enough to pay the bills. Or, there are so many things that I need, I lack, I want. This is the exact moment to give, to give an amount that is meaningful but realistic. You must break these thoughts of poverty, for thoughts of poverty are bonds of poverty, for thoughts of poverty are the chains that keep you bound to poverty. Mental chains may be invisible but they imprison you nevertheless. You must and you can break through, overcome, move beyond these mental barriers. You must open your hand. Repeat the new truth you created in Step 3 for strength, think of how much you do have, think of others with far less, and give thanks with your gift.
True financial freedom is a powerful state of mind, a state of being, and it comes from following all nine steps toward financial freedom. When you have reached this seventh step, and feel free to give from what you have and what you are creating, purely and from the heart, you are nearly free. With your offerings you are participating in the flow of wealth, which, I’ve discovered, is never-ending. It isn’t how much you have that creates a sense of freedom. It’s how you feel about what you have, or don’t have, that either keeps you prisoner or sets you free—which is the eighth step to financial freedom.