the best gift

I love giving and receiving gifts. Giving gifts, for me, is my way of expressing love and gratitude.

Whenever my birthday is around the corner, some closed-ones ask this question every year: What do you want as your birthday gift?

And this question is a common thing, on every birthday and anniversaries.

So let's just answer this, what can be the best gift to have? For almost anyone.

Besides all the expensive materialistic things that I always want, what could be the things which are not so expensive, or maybe not even monetary which can be a very good birthday gift for most people?

If I ask people, one answer always comes up is Time. Time is the best gift to give.

Giving quality time is always there and it has its impact. But we do not always have the time or the opportunity to give time. So we have to find alternatives too.

So, here are a few things I found, which one can gift to a closed one apart from quality time.

Note: I don't believe in gifting only on occasions. I believe in gifting whenever one feels like gifting. So all the ideas can be used without any occasion too.

Expressing my love

This is one of the most difficult of all (at least for me). Expressing your love requires courage. It makes you vulnerable and not many people are used to being vulnerable. But this is hands down one of the most important birthday gifts to give to anyone you love.

I have noticed, that most of the time, the people with whom I am close the most are the ones with whom I never share how I feel about them and how much they matter to me.

And anyone would love to hear someone say how much they matter to them and how much they love them.

Although expressing feelings can be done in any form: By writing, audio recording, video recording, calling, or in person. But I feel this is the order in which one should consider:

In Person>Video Call> Call>Video>Audio>Writing

Although difficulty level is also highest in person and lowest in writing (for me)

I feel, that in person has the highest impact than any other form of expression.

What can I include while expressing my feelings?

Things that I love about the person

Favorite memories with them, that I cherish

Qualities that I admire about them

What I have learned or gotten inspired by that person

How much they matter to me

Basically, as much as I can say to express my love

Expressing my feelings for a person always has an impact.

But I feel there are some things I need to take care of while doing so:

• I have to be vulnerable. The reason why most of the time I avoid expressing my feeling is that I have to be vulnerable. I have to lower down my armor and show my heart. So, I don't like to be vulnerable. It is much easier to have the armor. But, I always try to remind myself that without being vulnerable, there is no connection. Any relationship that matters to me, where I feel connected is because of that vulnerability. Because some moments, where I was completely vulnerable with that person, that caused the bond that I have. Although vulnerability is not a preferred choice for me, vulnerability is a need for me. So, if while expressing, I feel like crying, I should cry. (I almost always do)
  

• Whatever I express, it must be genuine, it should be from the heart. Without any filters, or manipulation. I can't lie or exaggerate anything. Even if I am a great liar, one will know if I am just saying things for the sake of it.
  

• Generalization won't work. I need to get into specifics. Generalization is a sign of me running away from being vulnerable.
  

• I have a problem with being vulnerable. I rarely express myself. So I know how difficult it is for many people to do the same. But I also know people around me, who would love to hear me expressing my love. Vulnerability is a need for me and for other people. So I am trying to be better at it.
  

What I am practicing, is a very small step towards being vulnerable. When I genuinely appreciate people, whenever I find something to appreciate, I have started to get out of my comfort zone and express what I loved about that person or what they did. But a lot of time, I come back to my comfort zone, and it takes me months to get back out...

Feedback

It's said that one stranger who only met you for 5 mins would know things about you that would take you 40 years to know about yourself.

Everyone around me knows, where I am lacking or need to improve to have a happier life, but no one says it because no one wants to get into that. Even if they do, I don't listen (sometimes, very rarely, I do).

I have seen people not giving feedback to people, just because they think it is a way of saying you are not perfect the way you are.

But I believe, feedback given in the right circumstances and the right way can be one of the greatest gifts to give/have.

No one is perfect, and almost everyone wants to have a happier and more successful life. Feedback can help in that process. I think feedback behaves as a catalyst for me to improve myself and my life.

But giving feedback is a very tricky thing, so there are certain things I have to keep in mind while giving feedback:

• I tend to give feedback which makes my life convenient and not the other way around. So making sure I am giving feedback to them is important.
  

• This is very critical, and I have to be very careful in this: Some pieces of advice are about suggesting a medium to reach somewhere, and mediums can be different for different people and I should not try to impose others to use the same medium as I do. Many things that are not valid for everyone. But I have a tendency that instead of just giving feedback, I also give the way to achieve that feedback and I believe that is the only way or the best way to achieve that. So for example, if I believe that reading is one of the most important habits to have in life to be successful and I give feedback to someone that you should read more. Now, this is not the kind of feedback that is useful because there are chances that one doesn't like reading. But what I am trying to convey is, that learning is one of the most important habits to have in life. One might learn from movies, podcasts, or real-life experiences, but the point is to give that freedom to choose their path, according to their convenience, to work on the feedback instead of ours. Or for example, if I believe Vipassana is something that everyone should do to be equanimous, this again is not the best way to give feedback. I can say that you should be more equanimous in life. And vipassana has helped me, but anything that suits you and helps you to be equanimous is fine. Sometimes it is difficult to differentiate between whether it is the actual feedback or whether it is one of the many ways to achieve that feedback, and that happens because of my blind spots. Sometimes I am so into believing some things, that I genuinely start believing that this is the only way or the best way of achieving a particular thing, and I forget to consider the possibility that there can be more ways and not everyone is me, so there is a high chance that some might like to take a different path to reach the same destination.
  

• And the last part for me is to make sure that while giving feedback, I am not making the other person feel like he/she is not enough. Like, he/she has a lot of flaws. The purpose of feedback is not to point out flaws, the purpose is to point out places where one can grow more. This happens a lot with me, I see where one can improve and I say it to that person, but my way of saying is not something that makes the other person feel good to find a place to improve. So taking care of this part is also important for me.

Apart from some exceptions, I think the best way is to balance out a combination of appreciation and feedback. But yeah, this I think is one of the best gifts to have (occasionally), not so regularly, otherwise, the importance of this gift can go away.

Materialistic things

For me, this is also a very important part of gifts, because one of my top two love languages is giving/receiving a gift. But as people grow older, the things they want, either they have them or it's out of the gifting budget. If I can afford expensive things, then it's perfect, I should give what the other person wants but can't/won't buy it for themselves. But if I can't, at that time, giving a materialistic gift can be a difficult task. But I think there are some things I can gift, which can be meaningful and within budget.

Handmade: I think, the importance of handmade things is not well established in our society. This type of gift can be one of the best gestures for a person, as it represents my love, effort, and hard work for them. It can be anything, a card, a hand-written letter, a cake, a painting, a piece of clothing that I stitched, basically anything that I created.

Little Things: There are things that one would not want as gifts but they do need for everyday purposes. When I gift those kinds of gifts, with the higher quality product (which most probably they won't buy for themselves) they will remember me whenever they use that product. For example, scissors, a nail cutter, perfume, a travel pouch, etc. They may seem silly but putting myself in the shoes of someone receiving these, I would remember them whenever I use those things. Also, these things are not very expensive, but if I buy the higher end of the product, it will be a nice gift, which they would have never bought for themselves.

Something that I remembered: There are times when people express their interest in things, if I pay attention then and maybe even note them down, I can use them as gifts. If I know their favourite food or something that they love but they don't have it regularly, I can order that. If I know that this person liked a dress or a book or something but they didn't buy it, I can give that. If I know that they once told me that they would like to try or do certain kinds of activities, I can plan that. These all things will make them feel like they were noticed and paid attention to. Most of the time, these things are not very expensive, but the feeling this creates can be more than something expensive.

P.S. I have to make sure I do not give any of these gifts for the sake of giving them, just because the day is coming, I have to gift it. That will dilute the whole purpose of the gifts, so I think it doesn't have to be every year, it can be whenever I feel like it. It doesn't even have to be date sensitive. If one doesn't take a gift without occasion, nowadays, everything can be counted as an advance birthday gift or a belated one. But I think, dates help me to get out of my routine and do something, or else many times I forget that I should do something.

Thank you for reading, I hope you found something meaningful

Love, Prem

Reference and inspiration of the blog: The School of Life, my mentor and my brother Kalash