It’s no secret that Christmas day is coming, which means pretty much everybody is getting busy buying gifts for the people they love. My dad is no different, and I accompanied him to the mall today because he needed to buy gifts for his godchildren as well as the guy who drives his service every morning when he gets to work. Now, going to Toy Kingdom to look for toys for the two kids was the easy part, because I’m still pretty much a kid mentally, so I managed to think of a lot of ideas. I was actually itching to joke around with dad by suggesting a dildo since it’s pretty much a sex toy, but I’d rather not have him punch me in the face in front of a bunch of people. Well anyway, we managed to buy what we need for the kids, which left us with the last gift to look for, which is the driver’s.
Now before dad and I started looking at the department store, he made it clear that he wants to give his driver a polo shirt, which shouldn’t exceed PHP500. At first it sounded easy enough, because I already have a brand in mind, which is Baleno, but I had no idea just how wrong I was.
So let me tell you how things went. As dad and I were looking around Baleno for nice polo shirts that were all below five-hundred, he noticed that the shirts didn’t have logos on one side of the chest like most branded and ridiculously expensive polo shirts do, and told me he wants to buy one with a logo. At first I didn’t think it was too ridiculous, so I went along and tried to find polo shirts that he would like, which raised another problem: all of the decent polo shirts bearing logos on their chests were all sold for more than five-hundred. In fact, the cheapest ones we found falling under dad’s preferences were at eight-hundred at the very least. And dad had a lot of trouble complying because he didn’t have that much cash left, and I could tell he didn’t really want to spend that much on a gift, especially for just his service driver. I can’t exactly tell if this is true, but at the time, it was the message I was seeing. We managed to go on for more than an hour trying to find the right polo shirt all because dad was being too picky, and I noticed that his favorite line all throughout our search was, “Ayoko nito.”
That was when I was slapped in the face by my common sense and realized that dad isn’t even considering the driver’s preferences and taste. He’s only considering his own. I mean, the only thing he considered about the driver is his age, because dad told me that the driver is already pretty old, so we shouldn’t pick out shirts that looked too boyish, instead we should focus on simpler designs, yet all I heard from dad is how he didn’t like the designs I picked out simply because they didn’t suit his taste. I mean, Jesus Christ, seriously, I could no longer tell if we’re shopping for dad’s driver, or dad himself.
And now we’ve finally reached the main point of this episode of Ninong Talk:
Why do we choose gifts based on what we like instead of what the receiver likes?
Believe me, I know a lot of people who think like this. I mean, I’m no hypocrite. I think like this too on several occasions, especially when I’m all out of ideas, which is why I always think it’s better when I bring another person along when shopping for gifts. It keeps my mind in check. It reminds me that I’m buying stuff for someone else, and not myself, which is pretty much the whole purpose of gift-giving. Though I do understand that more people do not think this way, but there are still times during shopping when we can’t help but think about what we want, and we let it linger in our thoughts for too long that it begins to bug our minds more than it should, making us prioritize our preferences over those of the people that we intend to give gifts to.
Now that it’s been said, I’m starting to think it’s really not that big of a deal to be considered an official Ninong Talk topic, but I just want to remind everyone reading this that when we buy gifts, we buy them for other people and not ourselves. Sometimes we forget that. And we think about it so much that we end up buying something that we like and giving it to other people who don’t even have the same preferences. I’m not completely sure if this can help, but the next time you find yourself in a situation like this, my only advice is that you try to remind yourself that what you’re buying is something you intend to give to someone else, and once you have that registered, it can award you with the most wonderful feeling in the world. Also, if you plan on bringing other people on your Christmas shopping trips, make sure not to bug them the same way my dad bugged me. I mean, I love him and all, and what he did today didn’t bother me that much. It just made me think of a bigger picture, which is why I used our little trip as an example.
Anyway, Merry Christmas in advance!
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