Gifting for Impact

Being a minimalist I have always preferred things that I need, not the things that I might need or I might use sometimes. I guess this is true for most of the minimalists. So to pick something as a birthday gift for a fellow minimalist should be something like that as well.

I would love to avoid the most common gifting items. Why so? You may pick something useful but what if that person already has that? Won't it be unnecessary for that person? You won't believe it, my previous wallet lasted more than six years without a scratch, and in the meantime, I got almost three more wallets as a gift that weren't being used, lastly, I gave them away to others. Same scenario with watches, I have four of them right now. Well, these are constantly used for different purposes. It's better to avoid these usual things to avoid redundancy.

What to pick then? In my opinion, it's obvious that you know the person, his preferences and things like that. Maybe that person has hobbies or something, no matter how minimalist he is, a particular item is never enough for him, always close to his heart. Maybe the habit of collecting different types of watches, perfumes, branded clothing, etc. If there is a specific sweet spot then it's kinda easy to hit the bull's eye. Otherwise, try to know what might be useful to him as of now. Maybe you have seen him using a bag for a long time, now may be the time for a change, so gift him a beautiful one. Maybe your friend is a bookworm, always reading hard copies or PDFs on the phone. Gift him a Kindle that would be super useful to him in the long run. I meant to say that, figure out that person's preferences, and see if it would be useful to him or rot in a corner.

As a tech enthusiast, it's always pleasurable for me whenever I get something of this sort. The RGB mousepad you see here is a gift from an elder brother from hive, I have been using this for more than a year every single day!! These are the kind of gifts that I admire, that fulfill a need as well as something of interest.

If I have to showcase one of my personal experiences of what to gift others then I would go with one that has been constantly used by that person every day multiple times. Also, I was praised highly for picking a particular gift that was unique and thoughtful. I have a religious friend, who always tries to perform everyday prayers. At our homes, we use prayer mats to perform our salah. Mostly we do use them for a long period of time, and usually, we don't possess them counting the family members. So I gifted a good quality prayer mat, this is a daily need, gets used multiple times, and the same thing happened as expected because I knew about this.

So I would say to gift something to a fellow minimalist, get to know about that person's preferences and needs if possible. I would prefer something that would fulfill a cause and would get used to serving the purpose regularly, not a Barbie doll where the attraction fades away after some time and rots in a corner.