Tipping as an opportunity to give

In recent years more and more payment screens both online and IRL have offered us opportunities to tip. I've seen various plaints about this crop up here and there, on social media, in periodicals, what have you. On the one hand, yeah it's a little annoying. At the same time, there's broad consciousness that wealth has become ever more concentrated in too many places in the world. The issue may not be as black and white as it is painted in some corners -- I've written before about how the myth of the top 1% having everything becomes an excuse for the top 20-30% of the population to paint itself as poor and be less generous than it might be.

And so, on the other hand (some of you may have been waiting for the proverbial brick to drop), I am growing to appreciate the requests for tips as an opportunity to give to others. I have to fight within myself a hard-grained belief that 15% is the appropriate tip for table service and therefore I should give less than that when picking up takeout,* but I am getting better at it. Likewise for tipping 20% or more when being served in a restaurant not to signal excellent service, but just to give more and to make the day of the server or servers a little brighter. Because I can and because the servers can use the money. 

It's a nice place to be in life where I have the wherewithal to think like this and to try to apply this mindset consistently. I am not always successful but I am getting to be a better and bigger tipper. 

* Also because I feel like I'm repaying a karma deficit for years when I didn't tip when picking up takeout. Maybe it wasn't a thing back in the 90s, or maybe I was just oblivious and felt economically insecure. In any case, I'm working on it.