Personal Encounter is Valuable Than Gifts

For siblings or relatives, even close friends, personal encounter or physical presence is so valuable than just sending gifts or present to a person.

This is so clearly seen among relatives who had been separated for so long because they have careers, or jobs in far-flung places, or could be very busy with their own lives. So as much as possible, it is very important to have close contact with them whenever time or situations permit.

An example here is a family who chose to live abroad because the couple are both working there as professionals. They were always on Facebook, updating their friends and relatives on what they were doing in that country; whatever food they had eaten, places visited, or milestones of their children. Whatever their purpose in flooding facebook walls with their activities, it is their right, and they can do it to their heart’s delight!

Then one day they posted that they are going back home to their country. As a close relative, you would expect they would visit you because their home is near your home. They had visited so many local places in your home country; posted it again in Facebook, and you just thought they might be very busy to spend some minutes to say hello to you!

After a week or two, you just learned that they had left for abroad again, and you were left thinking if they hate you, or you had done something wrong that’s why they did not visit you.

Another relative told you that the said family was thinking of visiting you, but they were apparently so shy to show up without giving any token or gifts to you! So amusing! They did not think that what you wanted is to see them in person, not in Facebook. You only wanted their children to know you, to see you, and talk with them on the “real world,” not online or only in Facebook!

This is the negative effect of materialism. Some people forget that nothing could substitute talking face to face with the people you love; being in the real world and not in the virtual world is best.

Gifts or tokens are not needed to connect with relatives or friends, but seeing them in person means more than material things.