Is it better to get or receive?

It is odd, our misunderstanding of “get” and “receive”, well mine was. I was raised with the idea that life is about doing, acting or behaving a certain way, to “get” something. Do your chores, you’ll get an allowance. Work harder you’ll get a promotion. Be helpful you’ll get approval. Meet expectations you’ll get validation. Please and you will get acceptance. Cultivating an ideal that one needs to be or take action to get something. And the deservedness of the getting is determined by another’s assessment of your being and doing. The power of the getting becomes the responsibility of someone else. Instead of us being able to acquire it ourselves. Rendering all our being and doing fruitless, unless another decides to bestow it upon us. Kind of feels very sixteenth-century.
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“You have been weighed, you have been measured and you have been found wanting”. - Count Adhemar de Monteil

The Angel Oak Tree, Charleston, South Carolina, United States of America

The idea that we can only “get” what others deem fit, is generally a problem. That is because the most that we will get from others, is capped by what they see themselves worthy of. In turn, we accept that as a reflection of our worthiness. Rather than the outcome being equal to our own worth. Which we can't possibly know, because we are on a merry-go-round of measuring ourselves against what we "get" from others.
We don't yet have the understanding that most of our being and doing and "getting" aren't in the pursuit of things we want. Our lives become less about the pursuit of who we are and what we want. And instead, built on a hierarchy of expectations that this or that is the next logical step.

At school, we consider our teachers and what they like and don't like in our work to get the best grades or mess about the most. In our twenties, we work towards acquiring property and purchasing our own vehicles. In relationships, we assess and determine the disposition of our partners. We work out when to ask them, how to ask them for something. We do more of what they like and we be less of what they don't like. To "get" them to like us, and approve of us further. We know what they do and don't like. We move into together and get married. At work, we know how our boss likes things. We understand their level of expectation and the additional capacities they require for consideration of promotion or recognition. And we work towards the direct promotion of our position because it appears as forward motion. Unknowingly perpetuating a predisposition to "get".

Some, become aware that it is society designing our lives instead of us. Others do not. But even for those that throw caution to the wind. That forge their own paths there still remains, without realizing, a tinge of perpetual being and doing within the guidelines and acceptance of someone else. Our achievements still resting on the hopes of being everything and doing everything right to result in us "getting".

We cannot "get" and really get anywhere. It is a contradiction. Doing things that you want. To build a life you want. Only to receive it from someone that isn't you. Leaves what you want in someone else's hands, appointing them the determiner of whether you deserve it or not.
So then, what is the difference between "getting" and "receiving"? By the definitions I have acquired through life;

Getting is an attempt at concerted control of external factors. It requires one to assess and determine the expectation, that if executed exceptionally will result in the hoped outcome. Not to be confused with being given something freely by another.

Receiving is focused internally. It involves recognizing the design one wants. An expectation that what you want, you will become. The being and doing are then aligned with what is wanted and pursues the direction of it. In which the pursuit becomes the validation, the approval. You are the one who determines your deservedness. It requires you to credit your own efforts, to allow opportunities time to come to fruition, without dismissing them, yourself and moving on to the next. It requires you not to run away from your own results.

Most of us don't realize that a choice exists between "getting" and "receiving".

This tree, The Angel Oak Tree, has grown exactly as it saw fit. Upwards, outwards, through the ground and back out again, for an estimated 400 years. And because it insists on doing so, because it determines from its environment what it deserves, it has a life expectancy of another 500 years. In comparison, we have such a short time to receive and we should make the most of it.