Gift-giving occurs all year round; it is not confined to Christmas, yet I felt compelled to write about it during the Christmas season.
As a therapist, it is imperative for me not to ‘assume’ or ‘presume’ my client is thinking a certain way. That would be judging a client, and we must always see our clients as vulnerable – in that they share very intimate and important information with us. It truly is a privilege to be a therapist. I always try to keep this in mind during any session.
But shouldn’t we treat our spouses, family and friends similarly?
If this is so, then is it right or just to assume they want a particular gift from you? Who are you to assume they want it. There is a lot of cognitive bias that goes along with gift giving – after all, you like it…therefore, they should like it as well. It makes total sense for you to buy this gift as every behaviour we do is done because it makes sense for us to do it – otherwise, we wouldn’t do it.
Right?
But as a gift recipient, if I don’t like what I receive, I can easily assume that you are thoughtless in your gift giving. How could the giver possibly think this is something I want or need in my life? We presume that the giver is thoughtless and provided me with this gift because it was either:
1) effortless to purchase it,
2) something the giver likes,
3) or the giver simply does not think at all.
Or, perhaps we should think differently.
Perhaps we should simply receive for the sake of receiving. This seems easily comprehensible but is often difficult for a lot of people to do.
Instead, we like to try to solve this unsolvable computation of how the giver’s mind works. We waste countless minutes or hours, asking ourselves many questions: What compelled them to buy this for me? If they had even given it 5 min of thought, they would come up with all the other things I could have used. What would provoke them to buy me something they know I am allergic to? Is it a household gift? – think blender or new toolbox, or How am I suppose to use this when I don’t {fill in the blank}.
If you do this – you are judging. YOU are now presuming something about the giver that is not provable or even solvable.
My advice, thank the giver. Then, thank the Creator for the fact that you have a giver in your life.
And leave it at that.