Art of Sharing

When you have plenty of resources you might not feel the pain of sharing with others or in fact you would like to offer others to share the resources. However, if resources is scarce and it is not enough to share with others, you might wish think twice before offering others to share. The question is how to determine you should share and under what circumstances that your sharing will not jeopardise yourself and at the same time bring in greater benefit to the opposite side.

Sharing is an art that skill and good judgement is required. On one hand you do not want to lose out after sharing and at the same time you do not want to enrich others so much that your interest is affected. Under normal circumstances not many people would like to share. It is not because they do not want to but simply because they do not know how to share. Sometime it is also because of self ego and innocient that people do not grasp the idea of sharing. For example, many bureaucrates do not know how to share their resources, skill, knowledge, workload and time. This resulted in duplication of works and also the wastage of resources.

I am touched after attending a budget discussion recently. A project proponent prepared forego his share of budget because he did not foresee the need for having done the project. The project proponent suggested money be spent in an area beyond his juridicion but with pressing issues. I thought this is the art of sharing that we are envisioned. Although you know very well that the money would not rechannel back for other uses, you go ahead of rejecting the allocation of resources.

In the era of resources scarcity, sharing can lead to sustainability. For example, car pooling to share journey generation can reduce the need for vehicles on the road. Integrated facilities complex to house different community facilities under the same roof top can help in the saving of land reserve and management cost. Time sharing concept for leisure premises can allow more people to enjoy the facilities with lower overhead cost.

Hence, sharing is about cost efficiency and effectiveness as well as justice. Sharing allows more people out reaching something with affordable cost. In order for sharing to work, it is matter of the willingness of givers and takers to share, I presume.