Every year, I face a seven-week challenge that hits a major weak spot. I’m not good at visualizing what others would want for gifts. Between December 25 and February 14, I have to contend with Christmas, my wife’s birthday, our wedding anniversary, and Valentine’s Day. That’s an entire year’s worth of stressful shopping and gift expectations distilled into 52 days.
To top it off, my wife is a fantastic shopper with tender insight into the needs and desires of others. My wife will see a handcrafted soap dish and say, “This would be perfect for your brother and sister-in-law, the colors match the wallpaper in their bathroom.” I am dumbstruck as I struggle to remember: do they have a bathroom?
It’s good to acknowledge discomfort and recognize our reactions to it. For me, shopping for others causes anxiety, so I could easily decide to avoid it. But the edge of anxiety is where growth happens. If we only do what is comfortable and avoid what is uncomfortable, we stagnate. I’m committed to making this life a learning journey, not a catalog of the ways to lead a pleasurable life. I try to use the first inkling of discomfort as a signal that there is something here for me to learn, an old pattern of reactivity that might be ready to unravel. Instead of avoiding, I turn toward it to see how I can grow.
To help me at this crucial moment, I often ask myself a question: what is this challenge trying to evoke from me? Or, stated differently, what new capacity am I being asked to develop? Putting a name to this new capacity shifts my attitude, stimulates my thinking, and helps me move forward.
For example, with my challenge of shopping for gifts, the capacity being evoked is my ability to take the perspective of others; to demonstrate my love for friends and family by choosing to see and appreciate the world as they do. When I started viewing my “shopping challenge” in this light, it became more manageable. Even fun. Imagining the world through the eyes of my loved ones deepened the way I experienced our relationships. That’s what happens when you develop your capacities – unintended positive consequences.
It’s a good thing, too. There are only three months between Valentine’s and Mother’s Day.
Photo by Ionela Mat on Unsplash