What is the greatest gift someone could give you?

I woke up early today, much earlier than I’m accustomed to, and I thought I would check today’s prompt before I fell back asleep. I had what I thought was a great idea to start my answer but I didn’t want to get started writing it out because it would only further wake up my brain. Now, my first thought is there are so many ways I could pick this question apart. Needs versus wants? Material or immaterial? Monetary? Time? Space? Flexibility?

I had to stop myself before I did the mental gymnastics down a rabbit hole on the philosophy of gift giving. When I spun up my thoughts again I told myself to consider what it is I’m missing in my life, what I feel I need most, and how that could be provided to me.

So, what COULD be the greatest gift someone could give to me? If I start by looking at the goals I’ve set for myself, what am I missing to achieve them? What have been my biggest struggles or challenges towards them? The more I looked and analyzed I came up with the same problems and similar solutions. To a certain extent I, myself, am my own problem. My struggles and challenges towards achieving my goals stem from my own inability to manage myself in various ways.

Sometimes the problem is my drive for success. I WANT to succeed, to achieve everything I set out as a goal for myself. I’ll start out strong and really get going but then the drive runs out or I get busy with other things that I (probably) could have just not engaged with in the first place. Sometimes that leaves me questioning if I ever really wanted to achieve that goal in the first place, then later on I’m reminded why I set it as a goal in the first place.

Other times the problem is caused by my own self-doubt. There could be no end to the drive or passion I want to put into something I really enjoy, but I hold myself back for some reason. I consume media left, right, and center all day every day and generate idea after idea. Then, when I feel like I’m on the cusp of DOING something with that drive or passion, a little voice in the back of my head says something along the lines of “don’t bother, they won’t like it anyway.”

Jumping off of the problems to the solutions leads to what I believe is my answer for today’s prompt. What I believe to be the greatest gift someone could give to me.

Support and companionship.

To be clear, I have amazing friends who are positive and supportive of my goals and dreams, but for me there is only so much it can do to bolster me when they live so far away and are busy living their own lives and chasing their own dreams. I can’t ask them to give me what I’m about to describe next.

The greatest gift would be that kind of person who not only can give me that push I might need, but can also pull when needed. To give of themself to walk through life alongside me, providing encouraging pushes and reassuring pulls to keep me moving towards the things I enjoy, and that I can reciprocate back to them the same encouragement and reassurance when they need me. To be each other’s greatest gift.