The little things of the heart

It's one thing to give a gift and another thing to understand the person recieving the gift. My views in life are quite different from yours or that of my best buddy.

We can't all be the same and until that concept has been fully understood, we'll always have a reason to complain and be at fault with everyone. If we were all the same: loved the same things, hated the same things, and had the same views, the world would have been a really boring place devoid of creativity.

It's the individual differences that gives a meaning to this world. That's why we have fashionistas, academicians, entertainers, extroverts, introverts.

For me as a minimalist, I'm okay with any sort of gifts on my birthday. Yeah, that's just me. Even a birthday text is cool enough, I really don't mind. For the fact you acknowledged that I had to be celebrated, I don't care if it's a wish or a gift, we're good to go.

I have a really close friend of mine, Chukwudi, who happens to be a minimalist. I know deep down that he loves pleasant odours, that's his priority. All he loves is: good smell! So if you were to have a friend like this what would you get him? Perfumes of course! Now, perfumes are number one on his scale of preference and he usually has a price budget for the perfume he buys. It's never above 2 thousand Naira.

His birthday was just last month and having the understanding that his heart leans towards perfumes, I got him one on his birthday. I was like ...

"Hey, have this, a friend of yours asked me to give you this"

He was reading in his apartment in preparation for the forthcoming medical exams which we both had. Did I forget to mention we were colleagues? Oh, yeah! We're colleagues.

"Wow! Who's the person?" He asked

"I'm the one, just kidding."

He smiled, opened the packaged box only to see a perfume. The perfume was given to me by my uncle who stays in Italy.

Took a picture of the perfume before surprising him with it😁

I knew he loved perfumes and me on the other hand, I didn't really care so much about it. So it was nothing to me but a really great deal to him. He was so happy he hugged me— something I'd never seen him do to a male friend. I could see the tears floating on the surface of his eyes and it was the best feeling I had ever felt in a long while.

The question is: has your gift ever eaten into the heart of your friend ? Well, most of us might not know and yes! It's because we fail to pay attention to the fact that different individuals have different wants and desires.

Now, imagine if I'd bought him a belt. of course he'd be glad because we have the same mindset to a great extent— except that I don't really have any particular gift in mind— but he wouldn't have reacted in such such a gleeful manner.

We're both mimalists but I guess even mimalists have what they call "scale of preference" you can't come around on people's birthdays throwing gifts that resonate with you alone. I mean, it's their birthday, so it should be about them, right?

Chukwudi and I had similar perception of life as minimalists of course, but still there's something he cherished more than I did and that's what we should all be concerned about. What is your understanding of the person recieving the gift? All you need is to get something that triggers the heart of the person involved. But you can never understand the heart of someone if you've never settled down to closely pay attention to little details. You don't really have to do so much or so little. Just search the heart and boom! That's all.

This still draws us to the fact that as humans, whether we're mimalists or not, we are still different people with different tastes and so for me, before giving out a gift to a friend of mine, I would deeply understand his/her personality only then, would I find the perfect gift.

It's all starts with our ability to deeply understand what lays in the deepest chambers of ones heart.