{"id":1039,"date":"2010-04-14T13:09:05","date_gmt":"2010-04-14T18:09:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zeroxr.com\/?p=1039"},"modified":"2010-04-14T13:27:49","modified_gmt":"2010-04-14T18:27:49","slug":"the-value-of-a-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zeroxr.com\/?p=1039","title":{"rendered":"The Value of a Gift"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This year&#8230; My birthday has been both the worst and the best with all due respect. My theme this year was &#8220;<em>spend time with the ones you love and cherish, gifts optional<\/em>&#8221; because with good friends, you don&#8217;t need gifts. The ultimate gift is the company of your friends as well as the bond shared over years and years. I had chosen the site of The Cheesecake Factory for my event, because I figured it&#8217;d be a fun and with a a taste for everyone that may be picky. I didn&#8217;t feel it was something ostentatious like the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stevefieldsrestaurant.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Steve Field&#8217;s Steak and Lobster Lounge<\/a> or something ratty like a greasy all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. To me, it was a modest middle ground with food from almost all cultures to pick and choose from. I also wanted to celebrate in a mature way and to be able to have a glass of beer or a martini with people I love being with. With that said&#8230; I had told my guests to just come as they are. I wasn&#8217;t expecting people to be in tuxedos and ball gowns for an outing that would cost thousands. I just wanted my friends to be there with me.<\/p>\n<p>The gifts I have received so far are not ones that I demanded for&#8230; below I give you the register of items.<br \/>\nUHA Pucchu candy<br \/>\nSteam game: Dark Void Zero<br \/>\nSteam games: Commandos Collection (on sale)<br \/>\nShiner Bock 6-pack<br \/>\nSteam game: Shatter<br \/>\nTucano netbook bag<br \/>\nSteam game: Command and Conquer Red Alert 3<br \/>\nSteam game: Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City<br \/>\nAnthony Logistics for Men: Clean Start Kit<br \/>\nThe Art of Shaving Fusion Power Chrome razor<br \/>\nAsus Eee PC 1001P Seashell netbook<br \/>\nTime spent with my friends<\/p>\n<p>There is one more gift a friend made mention that is on order, so this will be known as the following:<\/p>\n<p>????<\/p>\n<p>The greatest gift on this list is my friends. Sure, the material things are nice&#8230; but I won&#8217;t disregard the matter that even the material things vanish, wither, or break. The most important value to be absorbed from a gift is that&#8230; the value from a monetary stand-point should not be viewed\/mentioned. If you make it a point about the value of a gift&#8230; at that point, it is not a gift. I think Sol said it best with his quotation: &#8220;<em>Dude, at that point&#8230; reciprocating the value of a gift voids out the meaning of a gift, it&#8217;s a loan at that point.<\/em>&#8221; Another friend of mine named Seelen gave a great example: &#8220;<em>If I won the lottery and decided to buy you a yacht&#8230; I am not gonna say that I expect a Bentley Supersports coupe!<\/em>&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>To be honest&#8230; if my friends came to my birthday hangout and just gave me birthday cards&#8230; I&#8217;d have been happy as all hell for it. Friends last forever, material things will always be come-and-go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This year&#8230; My birthday has been both the worst and the best with all due respect. My theme this year was &#8220;spend time with the ones you love and cherish, gifts optional&#8221; because with good friends, you don&#8217;t need gifts. The ultimate gift is the company of your friends as well as the bond shared &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zeroxr.com\/?p=1039\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Value of a Gift<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,13],"tags":[283,51,523,524,586,589],"class_list":["post-1039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","category-rant","tag-birthday","tag-friends","tag-friendship","tag-gifts","tag-personal","tag-rant"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdVBT-gL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeroxr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeroxr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeroxr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeroxr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeroxr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1039"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeroxr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1041,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeroxr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039\/revisions\/1041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeroxr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeroxr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeroxr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}