The Only Gift That Matters

When the going gets tough, the tough go shop­ping. Isn’t that what we’ve always been taught? Isn’t that the Amer­i­can way?

That’s what we were instructed to do back in 2001, as a response to the ter­ror­ist attacks of Sept. 11. Remem­ber? Shop­ping became our patri­otic duty. It was our way of shak­ing off the shock of loss and get­ting beyond our national grief, not to men­tion right­ing the ship and keep­ing the engines of com­merce going.

And so, patri­ots that we were, we went shop­ping, because, well, what else was there to do? We weren’t asked to make any kinds of sac­ri­fices or to think or feel too much about what was really going on at the time. Wanna be a patriot? Go into the mil­i­tary or go shop­ping. Take your pick. Most of us chose the latter.

Shop­ping, the ulti­mate dis­trac­tion! There is noth­ing quite like it to tamp down those pesky, unwanted feel­ings we’d rather not feel. What can be bet­ter than a new pair of shoes or a new elec­tronic toy to drive away, at least for the moment, that inner choir of the “You’re not wor­thy, you’re too fat, too old, not good look­ing enough, not smart enough, who do you think you are, why bother — you’ll only fail, what will every­one think” blues?

I’m not sug­gest­ing that all shop­ping is a way to avoid or that it’s neg­a­tive or even wrong. Shop­ping can be a way to honor and cel­e­brate those we love, includ­ing our­selves. There’s noth­ing like find­ing a sale on the very thing for which you were will­ing to pay full retail, or cel­e­brat­ing a mile­stone or a spe­cial moment or achieve­ment by giv­ing a thought­ful gift. But let’s keep it in perspective.

As bad as the world appears to be right now, Vir­ginia, in all this mess, there is a sil­ver lin­ing. Some­thing is hap­pen­ing out here in con­sumer land. We are begin­ning to wake up.

We’re begin­ning to wake up, not only as con­sumers, but also as human beings real­iz­ing that some­thing more is required of us than per­form­ing our patri­otic duty by fill­ing up shop­ping carts this hol­i­day sea­son and beyond. Our col­lec­tive awak­en­ing might not be read­ily appar­ent how­ever, since this year we broke all spend­ing records on Black Fri­day and mil­lions of peo­ple came away with shop­ping carts over­flow­ing with good­ies. Money was saved and money was spent and the econ­omy got a boost. Yay!

But we also got pep­per sprayed by crazed con­sumers seek­ing to pro­tect their loot and at least one per­son lost his life in a tragic way while attempt­ing to shop on that week­end. To bor­row a phrase from the AA com­mu­nity, could we just say we’ve “reached bot­tom”? We have bot­tomed out. Could we call a “time out” and regroup?

Some­thing much more impor­tant than shop­ping and gifts is attempt­ing to make itself known to us through these tragedies. For the fam­ily of the man who had a heart attack at a Tar­get store, was com­pletely ignored and then tram­pled upon and sub­se­quently died, what­ever gifts he might have brought home that night will never mea­sure up to the price he paid for them. This might sound like an extreme exam­ple, but it isn’t the first time some­one has paid the ulti­mate price for a Black Fri­day deal.

When the gift becomes more impor­tant than the giver, it car­ries a price that is usu­ally not adver­tised. Some­thing essen­tial has been lost. For “things” can­not fill the hole left by the loss of a loved one or sub­sti­tute for a love that wasn’t oth­er­wise expressed. Life is brief and it ends some­times all too quickly. If the only gifts that mat­ter never were given, what’s left in the wake are regrets.

Hav­ing worked in pal­lia­tive care for years, author Bon­nie Ware, in her book “The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying,” lists the fol­low­ing responses from peo­ple fac­ing the last few days of their life when queried about what they regret the most:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life oth­ers expected of me.
2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feel­ings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

No Black Fri­day gift lists here! No elec­tronic gad­gets. No baubles, ban­gles or beads. Just the recog­ni­tion of the real costs of a life unlived. But we, among the liv­ing, still have a choice. And we can exer­cise that choice through the aware­ness we bring to each moment.

Snag a new TV set at Best Buy on sale, $200. Liv­ing in align­ment with what really mat­ters — price­less! What mat­ters is more about pres­ence and less about presents. It’s more about what kind of per­son is doing the giving.

Who’s the giver you want to be? Who’s the giver you already are? What inef­fa­ble qual­i­ties do you bring to the giv­ing? This is truly the gift you have to give.

The only thing that mat­ters is that you give this gift, what­ever it is. For in giv­ing it to oth­ers, you auto­mat­i­cally give it to your­self. And visa versa. What we give to our­selves fills up the cup from which we give to oth­ers. It’s a cir­cu­lar thing. The old adage: “What goes around comes around” hap­pens to be true!

At the end of your life, what will you trea­sure the most? The expen­sive gift some­one gave you, or the qual­ity of the time you spent with one who gave it?

This hol­i­day sea­son and through­out the com­ing year, let what you give be an affir­ma­tion of the val­ues you hold most dear. Give of the things that are the deep­est and the high­est expres­sion of who you are. What is that for you?

For me, it’s about being real and shar­ing the “juice” of life, the good, the bad and the some­times ugly. It’s about losses grieved, tears shed and hands held. It’s about telling the truth, for­giv­ing and ask­ing for for­give­ness. It’s about shar­ing the jour­ney, lend­ing an arm or ask­ing for one to lean on when the feet or legs get wob­bly. It’s about long walks, cups of tea and tele­phone chats across the miles.

For me, the gift that mat­ters most is about being in the pres­ence of “Being” and hon­or­ing the sacred. It’s about being a heart that lis­tens. It’s about rec­og­niz­ing the beauty of sim­plic­ity, appre­ci­at­ing bold­ness and hav­ing the courage to be honest.

It’s about the love of fam­ily, the bond that is shared and the acknowl­edg­ment that this bond tran­scends every­thing. It’s about express­ing love through words and actions that has my beloveds know they are loved beyond measure.

There are no Black Fri­day deals on the gifts that mat­ter most. They are in abun­dant sup­ply 24/7, 365 days a year.

Tagged as: Black Friday, Christmas Shopping, gifts, holiday season