It’s a lot of work raising a human being from scratch. You’re handed a baby with a blank slate and are left to fill it with a world of knowledge, skills, emotions, and much more. The current trend in parenting has leaned towards encouraging the emotionally self-aware and self-determined child. Self-awareness and self-determination are important tools to develop as a person becomes a part of the world. But, unless we’re looking to raise self-centered and self-focused people, filling a clean slate requires much more than this.

This post is about a common relationship issue: gift-giving anxiety. With the Hallmark holidays constantly expanding (and now that it’s November), men and women in any significant relationship — girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands, wives — are all in the same boat of constantly looking for new ways to make their significant other feel special on a gift-giving occasion. But what isn’t always discussed is the anxiety that many people feel in having to generate new ideas and still have them be meaningful.