Randy Wray’s Blog

I keep learning or realizing these things about myself.

Yesterday I realized the difficulty of accepting a gift. Don’t get me wrong, in my mind I imagine receiving all kinds of freebies. Upon receiving the gift, however, I spend a fair amount of time trying to pay back the giver. Am I the only one affected in this manner?

There are certain relationships where, over the years, I’ve been the giver. I’ve also been in many relationships that have been mutual in the gift department. I’m wondering now if this is because it’s two people who can’t just accept a gift and find ways to give a gift upon receiving a gift!

Yesterday I was given a very nice gift. A friend of mine purchased and gave me a custom made classical guitar. He had been traveling in Mexico on business, came across a local luthier (fancy word for instrument maker), thought of me and purchased a guitar for me as a gift.

I was speechless, appreciative, grateful, humbled, and conflicted. I spent the entire rest of the day trying to figure out how I was going to pay this person back for the gift he had given me.

Most of us, it seems, do quite well in giving to others. There seems to be some circuit that trips when we receive a gift. Why is that?