My Mini Enlightenment Stories #1

My Happiness is My Happiness.

 
No. I'm not enlightened. Yet.

But I thought I must list down all the moments where I was closer to realizing something profound. So here's the first one.

It was Aug 2007. I had just come from abroad. I had just lost my father. I had also lost substantial money from my substantial earning abroad. So I was brutally frugal. I stayed alone in Bangalore. I had a job at hand which hadn't started yet. So i was unemployed and had severe scarcity of money.

 
Everyday, those days, my meals were two veg or egg puffs. Sometimes a fruit salad or juice. I'm not saying this to attract sympathy but I wanted not to spend on myself till I deserved to spend again.
I traveled by bus. Walked wherever was necessary.

 
Then came my daughter's 4th birthday. She was in some other place then. I went there specially to celebrate her birthday. She was the one who had given me greatest joy of my life ever. How could I miss her birthday?

Instead of taking a gift for her, I thought this time I would take her out to buy what she wanted.
I took her to the best gifting shop of that place. There were many attractive toys and dolls kept. I asked her to choose one. She chose something that costed ₹40. I don't remember what that was but with glittering eyes she joyfully selected that.

I was taken aback. My budget for her birthday was unlimited as usual. But there I was, going through a financial crisis of my life and my daughter chose a gift which was a plastic toy costing ₹40.
I had decided not to spend on myself. But only to save money to spend on my family. So I said 'what's this, take something better.' She was like, 'no, I want this only'.

I forced her. I chose a much bigger doll that rotated while playing music. It was large, beautiful and I thought would be desired by every child of her age. That costed ₹400. Going by my standards, it wasn't much but going by the crisis that time, it was a significant amount for me. But the joy of gifting my daughter was much more than any pain. Or so I thought.

I was wrong. My daughter unwillingly accepted that gift. We came home. Nobody knew about my financial plight at that time, nor did I tell anybody. So it wasn't a great deal for anybody seeing a doll worth ₹400 which was bought in place of a toy with ₹40.

 
But it was a great deal for the two. Myself and my daughter.

 
My daughter never touched the big doll I gifted her, from the money I saved by almost starving. She didn't get the thing she wanted. Little did she know the value of money and the pain behind it.
I was not only shocked but disheartened too as i thought my efforts weren't rewarded.
I learnt the following.

What I was looking for, was MY HAPPINESS of gifting her something bigger than she expected.
HER HAPPINESS had nothing to do with MY HAPPINESS.

If I wanted to make her happy, I would have bought what she wanted and not what I wanted.
The doll is still sitting in her cupboard, shining brand new, mocking me every time I open the cupboard.