My Idea of gifts at present

I had my birthday last week.

I was not particularly eager for my birthday this year, but the customs surrounding birthdays kept me interested.

The culture of giving gifts has always baffled me. Earlier, when I was a kid, it was easy both to give and receive. I always needed things, and if anyone gave me one of those, I would be happy. And if it wasn't one of the things I needed, it would still make me happy to have something new in my possession.

Back in college days, it was relatively easier to give gifts as well. There would always be things that I knew my friends might need, and I was always more than happy to fill in the gap.

But the last few years have been tough.

All by the grace and infinite blessings from the Almighty, my friends mostly have everything that money can buy and that their consciousness would allow them to buy. So, it's a clear scratch of the head on what to gift the people who are important in life.

It's almost the same story with me; I have most of the things that I might need and what my consciousness would allow me to buy.

As a result, there has to be a complete transformation in how I think about gifts these days.

Now, a truly meaningful, sentimental gift, or something personally significant—perhaps overlooked amid daily routines—seems most fitting.

So this year, here is a birthday gift that I thought I would give to the people I cherish, and I would love to receive as well.

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1. My health

There is more to it than what it looks like. I make a promise to myself and the people who are important to me that I will take care of myself.

And here are a few ways I would like to do that.

Cutting the food ordering to almost zero.

Living in India comes with its own share of disadvantages, but there is a solid habit-destroying game in play; with the click of a few buttons, your wanted food is on the table. We slowly lose control over our impulse to stuff ourselves, with an excuse ready for every joy, sadness, celebration, defeat, or stress.

May it be any emotion, we just stuff ourselves rather than listening to what our feasting stomach can adapt to. With overeating being a concern and delayed gratification going for a toss, my biggest concern is with the way the food comes in.

Packed in black containers that are neither food-safe nor FDA recommended, freshly packed food with all its farm-fresh, month-old refrigerated ingredients quietly becomes a source of microplastics and harmful seepage. From there, the path to life-threatening disease has no U-turn.

It matters because when your loved ones see you in a position they cannot help you in, it feels helpless.

For me, handling my pain is relatively simple. But when it hurts someone close to me, I feel emotions I can’t deal with. This was perhaps the reason I am not a doctor, but an engineer.

So this is my way of preventing that helplessness.
If you would like to gift me something, considering this would be very helpful.

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2. My fitness

Yes, of course, going to the gym is a part of it.

In addition to that, I am going to get back to my running habits and learn to swim. Over the last couple of years, a number of people told me that I inspired them to work on their endurance and physical health. I love inspiring people to become better versions of themselves.

This is another gift I would like to give to my world—and I would be more than happy to receive it back.

In addition to physical health, I am trying to be more present.

By “more present,” I mean being there when I show up. Putting my 100% attention into things. There is nothing better than talking to someone who listens to understand, not just to respond.

I feel this quality is declining rapidly.

I have observed my attention span turning slightly goldfish-like when I spend more time with my smartphone and try to do everything quickly. So the plan is to dumb down on life.

To start with, my birthday gift was a dumb watch, which was really thoughtful. Right now, the only way to know the time is to look at my phone—and that takes me into a digital black hole.

I have already given up Instagram and Twitter, which drained a lot of my mental bandwidth and energy. So yes, I am on the way to becoming a monk 😅.

A more present version of me, without extreme opinions reinforced by reels, is the gift I want to give to my world—and I would be equally delighted to receive it back.

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3. Money

Yes, talking about money is important.

For us in India, the shape and size of money has changed dramatically over the years. From metallic coins to paper notes of increasing denominations, and now to numbers on a smartphone or plastic cards—each step removing a little more friction from how easily it leaves our hands.

Having seen an extreme lack of money, I value it a lot—perhaps sometimes more than what the world considers normal.

I am slowly converting into an orthodox uncle who is frantic about using money from his phone. Maybe not because of scammers, thanks to my tech background, but because of corporate manipulators who want me to believe that spending more money would make me happier.

Per capita expenses have gone up three times in the last 25 years. Per capita possessions, five times. And yet only one-third of us report being as happy as before.

I have seen times when money could have saved lives, and the lack of it made us helpless. That helplessness still stays with me.

So this is my gift: I will make financially conscious decisions, so that the people around me don’t have to see me in a helpless situation.

If you do the same for yourself, I would take that as a gift too.

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4. Consumption

If we are consuming nearly five times more than before, the real question is: where are all the new resources coming from?

The answer is one we already know.

They are coming from the same Earth that we share with countless other species.

Because of our greed, we have depleted it beyond the point of reversal. Forests cut down. Homes plundered. Species extinct. Animals raised for food and milk never seeing daylight.

When I think about buying clothes or shoes I don’t urgently need, I think about the waste dumped into oceans and the lives displaced from their homes.

So here is the last gift I want to give to this world:

I will consume only as much as I need from this planet, so that I don’t continue my afterlife in an unimaginable psychological debt.

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Maybe this birthday wasn’t about receiving gifts at all.

Maybe it was about becoming someone who needs less, wastes less, and shows up more—for himself, and for the people he loves.

And that feels like a gift worth growing into.