There is no better gift to give

Joey Carlson
MSMU Class of 2025

(12/2022) The only gift that matters is the kind of person you are for those you love. Physical gifts are just one practice of this but, ideally, the physical gifts you give to those you love are simply a gratuitous addition to the gifts you give to them in living for them.

When I was in third grade, there was an item on TV that I put at the top of my wish list. It came with all sorts of weird plastic parts and tubes and things which could be put together and customized to make a track for a ball you’d put at the top. If I remember correctly, it was $300, and since it was at the top of my wish list, my parents got it for me, though we were by no means rich. When we got it, I was excited briefly, I gave up on putting it together, my father finished building it, I used it a few times, and never used it again. My dad donated it. They never mentioned it again.

To them, the point of purchasing that item was to love me. Even if they were simply watching their money burn, they were willing to let it burn for the possibility that it would make me happy. There is much to be said about prudence, but even more to be said about mercy.

As you can tell, I grew up entitled. I never had to worry about anything besides normal adolescent stuff (school, social life, etc.) because it was a given that my parents would take care of everything else. What is especially surprising is that most of my close friends seemed to have generous parents too. I am certain that I was blind to much going on in the lives of those around me.

I had a friend in high school who was Jehovah’s Witness. Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in holidays, so my friend never received presents on holidays. I remember asking him about it and he said that it didn’t matter because his dad gives him presents randomly at other times besides holidays. I thought that was odd, but it seemed like he had a lot more gratitude than I did. Since he didn’t expect to receive presents, when he did, it meant more.

There have been years when I haven’t gotten one or two of my family members anything. They never cared, though I often thought that they should have cared. They basically didn’t notice. When you give, truly give, you do not expect anything in return. So, while anything I gave them was nice, if they didn’t receive anything back, they barely noticed because that is just not what they cared about. They cared about making me happy, and I was happy, so they were happy.

This way of thinking about gifts has gradually changed for me. The first step was probably my getting a job, and realizing the value of money in terms I understood: ten dollars an hour. If I had gotten that weird $300 gift for my parents, it would have taken me at least 30 hours to pay for it from my own labor. That struck me; my time was so precious, and money had seemed so spendable. I used to ask my dad for money to walk across the street with my friends to buy Chick Fil A. He always gave me more than I needed, and I rarely gave that money back; I just spent it on more Chick Fil A. There were weeks during the summer when I would buy an eleven dollar meal three or four times. When I began working for Chick Fil A, and that meal cost an hour of my life, I wasn’t so quick to order it.

The second step was my having someone whom I actually wanted to give gifts to. A little over three years ago, I had my first girlfriend, the same person I am in love with now. I am fortunate enough to be partnered to my best friend. For the first time in my life, I wanted to give someone something, and I did not care about receiving anything back. I imagined proposing to her and giving her dozens and dozens of roses (overkill, I know). I did get her things; I insisted on buying her meals, flowers, chocolate. I still do that, though the one who pays for the meal has since been the one who makes the most money at the time (which is definitely her at some points).

The most important, and ongoing step, has been my realizing the immense chasm between the quality of her gifts and of mine, and what that says about her and I. The best I’ve ever done has been writing her songs, poems, or letters. She paints, and she is very good at it. My walls are full of hundreds of hours’ worth of her effort. She rarely keeps her paintings; she only ever gives them away. Her first Christmas gift to me was a painting that she had apparently spent the least time on (according to her, four hours isn’t a lot, though she did spend 40 hours on something she recently gave to her mom). It was something I had said that I would love; an icon of our Lord Jesus and His Sacred Heart, but where the heart is a rose. I do love it; it helps me pray every single day. There is no better gift to give.

I have still managed to be ungrateful often. Burning money, or even worse, time (which is your life), rarely has its desired effect immediately. The realization that I exist and that I live a happy life only because of the intense wasting of other peoples’ resources is frightful. I wonder whether it was worth it for them to do that. They sure think so. Giving without expecting anything back is slow and monotonous, requires a profound love, and often takes years to see gratitude; but if you ever wanted to change someone’s life, that’s the best way to do it.

Read other articles by Joe Carlson