I sense a trend here that we all tend to go out and take what we want as soon as we realize that it could benefit our lives. As such, getting a gift over the holidays loses much significance, for if there is something that would benefit our lives, if we are doing it right we'll have gotten it already.
I still think that gift giving over the holidays has its place. Mostly in gifts that you'd never have thought of on your own. Not all of us have thought of everything.
I regularly get gifts, at random when I feel like it, for people in my quotidian dealings if I think that it would improve their lives, and if I think that they've not thought of it yet. For example, healthy, organic, powder green tea for people who could do with better skin, or who could stand to lose a few pounds (or 70). It doesn't matter the time of year - it could be on a Tuesday in August, a rather nondescript day.
For Xmas I would be really happy if someone gave me something that genuinely improved my life, even if only marginally, that I would never have thought of otherwise. Those are the really special gifts, and they still have a place in our lives, even if we think that we have everything that we need. There's always something out there that we could use.
What in your life have you not thought of that would improve it? It could even be something that we might resist at first. I used to resist the idea of meditation. If someone had offered five years ago to take me on a meditation retreat, I may have balked a bit, but now it would be the bee's knees - something that would really improve my mental health.
The challenge is knowing the person well enough to know what is missing, even when he does not. That is the advantage of periodic gift giving - you see the situation of a person from the outside, which he cannot.
I still think that gift giving over the holidays has its place. Mostly in gifts that you'd never have thought of on your own. Not all of us have thought of everything.
I regularly get gifts, at random when I feel like it, for people in my quotidian dealings if I think that it would improve their lives, and if I think that they've not thought of it yet. For example, healthy, organic, powder green tea for people who could do with better skin, or who could stand to lose a few pounds (or 70). It doesn't matter the time of year - it could be on a Tuesday in August, a rather nondescript day.
For Xmas I would be really happy if someone gave me something that genuinely improved my life, even if only marginally, that I would never have thought of otherwise. Those are the really special gifts, and they still have a place in our lives, even if we think that we have everything that we need. There's always something out there that we could use.
What in your life have you not thought of that would improve it? It could even be something that we might resist at first. I used to resist the idea of meditation. If someone had offered five years ago to take me on a meditation retreat, I may have balked a bit, but now it would be the bee's knees - something that would really improve my mental health.
The challenge is knowing the person well enough to know what is missing, even when he does not. That is the advantage of periodic gift giving - you see the situation of a person from the outside, which he cannot.