What people really want for the holidays fulfills both an immediate and forever need.
It is not what you think.
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People go crazy figuring out what to give people for the holidays. They peruse catalogues, spend hours online, wait for a space to park their cars at the mall and trudge through throngs of shoppers going from store to store.
Often people leave wish lists online or in chain stores allowing others to choose from a variety of gifts the recipient actually desires. That process takes out the guesswork of choosing appropriate and desirable items.
Great, so these days gift giving can be less of a hassle than in years gone by.
Yet all the gifts in the world represent money spent. Does someone love a person more because they buy more expensive gifts?
If you are parent do you feel you have to spend the same amount of money on each child’s gift to show your love is the same across the board?
Is a homemade gift more or less valuable than store-bought items?
Frankly all those questions, all those seeming conveniences fail to touch the single priceless gift that everyone yearns to receive.
Why?
What people really want is not something tangible.
You cannot put this desired item in a box, wrap it with festive paper and decorate that package with a beautiful bow.
The most desirable gift of all is priceless and amazingly affordable. In fact no one can claim the inability to offer this gift to anyone and everyone.
You cannot hold this gift in your hand. You cannot put it in a gift box, wrap it in pretty paper and tie on a special bow.
What do you want from your partner? What do you want from your kids? From your parents? From your friends? And even from your boss and the clerk in the store?
You want attention. You want to be the center of attention – even if for just a few minutes. You want the love that comes with undivided attention focused just on you.
What every person on the planet really craves is knowing he or she is so lovable that someone willingly clears their agenda of other thoughts to pay full attention, not 99% but 100% attention, on them.
The more time and focused one-on-one attention a person receives the greater and the more lasting the gift.
Self worth means everything to every person.
Knowing one deserves full attention – being listened to, honored and respected just as they are and just as they are not – unfortunately exists as something outside one’s realm of possibility for most people regardless of age, gender, position or nationality.
Ideally people live the habit of being fully present when with another individual. However that way of being in the world remains foreign to most people. After all you cannot live what you do not know. And to know something means to experience it.
You can create a new habit. You can give a gift of a special time or date to spend one-on-one with each person on your list. Note: for those people who live miles away you can spend that time on the phone or online chatting.
Start with a commitment of a special date to do what the recipient wants to do (not what you decide they want to do). Don’t stop there.
Develop your listening skills to become someone who others count on to be fully present with them.
Please read part 2 of this post to truly deliver the gift to those you care about.