HEALTHY LIVING
WHAT TO CONSIDER FOR
MINDFUL GIFTING
Marion E. Wildey
N
ot too many decades ago we were
a nation focusing on necessity
with maybe a little extra, but now
it seems we aim for tremendous
excess. Gift giving included clothing
to replace garments too worn or
that no longer fit, and now we
choose the saggy, threadbare look
as traits of our wardrobe choices.
Other presents like a book, a bottle
of wine, or bathing accoutrements,
has given way to the latest and
greatest trend like an air-fryer, or a
fancy single-use coffee makers. As
we move from the years of shopping
to restore wardrobe components and
toiletries, the push for more expensive
and increasingly less useful goodies
increases. Outdoing and topping the
previous year’s gifts has evolved into
the gift giving norm. Consider at what
price extensive gift giving affects the
bigger picture beyond your wallet like
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WINTER GARDEN MAGAZINE
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DECEMBER 2018
resources to create items and fuel to
deliver items all across the country.
Purchasing knick knacks from the
kitschy souvenir stalls from every
foreign city or Caribbean island
visited, and giving them as mementos
doesn’t serve to enhance the space or
the environment with which it will
reside. When we look at the bigger
picture of what goes into creating
“things” to their usefulness, it should
give pause for intelligent thought.
What is the obsession with bigger
and more being the epitome of better?
The excessive exorbitance has been
ingrained that the more we have, the
better off we are financially. Shouldn’t
the better goal to have things that
serve a purpose, instead of taking
up space? Look around the house,
or the immediate room you’re in, and
note ten things that serve no purpose
to you. Keeping these items or even
purchasing them in the first place do
not serve our highest and best, and yet
strive for more. Focus this season on
the mindful gift options that provide
certain usefulness.
There was a time when clothes,
furniture, and many other items
were made by hand out of quality
materials indigenous to the area. Now
we purchase mass produced furniture
made in cookie cutter fashion out
of cheap materials. This makes for
goods that don’t hold up, and the
energy of producing the materials to
manufacture them is wasteful of the
natural resources that went into the
materials. At what cost does this affect
us individually and as a planet? On
the immediate side, it’s encouraged to
support the economy and purchasing
the next cool toy on the market that
might be worth a fortune one day, if