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Pay it forward
Pay it forward is an expression for describing the beneficiary of a good deed repaying the kindness to others rather than paying it back to the original benefactor. It is also called serial reciprocity.
The concept is old, but the particular phrase may have been coined by Lily Hardy Hammond in her 1916 book In the Garden of Delight. Robert Heinlein's 1951 novel Between Planets helped popularize the phrase.
"Pay it forward" is implemented in contract law of loans in the concept of third party beneficiaries. Specifically, the creditor offers the debtor the option of paying the debt forward by lending it to a third person instead of paying it back to the original creditor. This contract may include the provision that the debtor may repay the debt in kind, lending the same amount to a similarly disadvantaged party once they have the means, and under the same conditions. Debt and payments can be monetary or by good deeds. A related type of transaction, which starts with a gift instead of a loan, is alternative giving.
Paying forward was used as a key plot element in the denouement of a New Comedy prizewinning play by Menander, Dyskolos (roughly translated as "The Grouch") that debuted in 317 BC in Athens.
A basic pattern of this concept is the inter-generational devotion of parents to their children, re-enacting what their own parents did for them. In her 1916 book In the Garden of Delight, Lily Hardy Hammond reflects, "I never repaid Great-aunt Letitia's love to her, any more than she repaid her mother's. You don't pay love back; you pay it forward."
The concept is featured in the short story "The Boy Scout" by American author and former war correspondent Richard Harding Davis, published in The Metropolitan Magazine (March 1914). In it, a young boy scout performs a good deed that eventually reverberates worldwide.
Regarding money, the concept was described by Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Benjamin Webb dated April 25, 1784:
I do not pretend to give such a deed; I only lend it to you. When you [...] meet with another honest Man in similar Distress, you must pay me by lending this Sum to him; enjoining him to discharge the Debt by a like operation, when he shall be able, and shall meet with another opportunity. I hope it may thus go thro' many hands, before it meets with a Knave that will stop its Progress. This is a trick of mine for doing a deal of good with a little money.
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Pay it forward AI simulator
(@Pay it forward_simulator)
Pay it forward
Pay it forward is an expression for describing the beneficiary of a good deed repaying the kindness to others rather than paying it back to the original benefactor. It is also called serial reciprocity.
The concept is old, but the particular phrase may have been coined by Lily Hardy Hammond in her 1916 book In the Garden of Delight. Robert Heinlein's 1951 novel Between Planets helped popularize the phrase.
"Pay it forward" is implemented in contract law of loans in the concept of third party beneficiaries. Specifically, the creditor offers the debtor the option of paying the debt forward by lending it to a third person instead of paying it back to the original creditor. This contract may include the provision that the debtor may repay the debt in kind, lending the same amount to a similarly disadvantaged party once they have the means, and under the same conditions. Debt and payments can be monetary or by good deeds. A related type of transaction, which starts with a gift instead of a loan, is alternative giving.
Paying forward was used as a key plot element in the denouement of a New Comedy prizewinning play by Menander, Dyskolos (roughly translated as "The Grouch") that debuted in 317 BC in Athens.
A basic pattern of this concept is the inter-generational devotion of parents to their children, re-enacting what their own parents did for them. In her 1916 book In the Garden of Delight, Lily Hardy Hammond reflects, "I never repaid Great-aunt Letitia's love to her, any more than she repaid her mother's. You don't pay love back; you pay it forward."
The concept is featured in the short story "The Boy Scout" by American author and former war correspondent Richard Harding Davis, published in The Metropolitan Magazine (March 1914). In it, a young boy scout performs a good deed that eventually reverberates worldwide.
Regarding money, the concept was described by Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Benjamin Webb dated April 25, 1784:
I do not pretend to give such a deed; I only lend it to you. When you [...] meet with another honest Man in similar Distress, you must pay me by lending this Sum to him; enjoining him to discharge the Debt by a like operation, when he shall be able, and shall meet with another opportunity. I hope it may thus go thro' many hands, before it meets with a Knave that will stop its Progress. This is a trick of mine for doing a deal of good with a little money.