I feel like there are a lot of ways that I can see to divide the world's inhabitants in half: Thinkers vs Feelers, Extroverted vs Introverted, Optimistic vs. Pessimistic, and so on.  I've talked about some of these before, but now I've thought of another.  Last night I got to thinking about givers vs takers.  There is some middle ground, in my opinion, but for the most part most people are "either, or."  I personally favor one over the other, but perhaps having both is just the way the world balances overall.

    Givers: I am not speaking of Givers in the sense that you physically give any sort of material object, but rather they have a giving nature and are giving of themselves.  Givers seem to have a general stance of being satisfied with life and with themselves, so they feel that they can give out some of the goodness in their lives and feel a natural desire to make others feel gifted.  They don't look to outside sources to be happy, they are happy within themselves.  These people are are usually pleasant to be around because they don't expect the world to give to them in order to be satisfied, instead they are concentrated outward on giving. 
    Takers: As with givers, this does not refer to physically taking things like a kleptomaniac.  Takers generally feel a need to be taken care of more often in order to feel much of the ability to give.  It's not that they have no desire to give, but if they haven't "taken" first, they won't be as satisfied and will likely cause more aggravation than offer solutions.  They prefer things to be their way and usually work to make sure it happens just so.  These people aren't necessarily hard to be around, just not as pleasant and easygoing as a giver because they may not always be in a giving state themselves. 

    Thing is, when you have a couple of friends, or a 'couple,' who are each one of these, sometimes the mixture works.  Some givers are so givey that they can give and give and give and their taker friend can taker can take and take and take and both are left satisfied.  I don't personally understand this kind of relationship because even the giviest person needs to take something every once in a while, but it works really well for some people. 
    Like I said, it's not impossible to be both.  I would simply say that if you feel as though you need to be satisfied in order to give -that it's hard to give until you've received- then you're more likely a taker.  If you feel like your needs can come second to others', you're probably more a giver.  There's nothing inherently wrong with being one or the other, it's just an interesting thing to examine about oneself. 

I love hearing opinions.

I hope this has been mildly enlightening!

~Jared