This column from AXIOS:

“What if instead of getting presents on our birthdays, we gave gifts?

• That’s the question author Daniel Pink explores in a recent Washington Post column.

Why it matters: Acts of kindness go even further than the giver realizes.

• Plus, studies show that spending cash on others makes us happier than spending it on ourselves.

🥳 Zoom in: Pink decided to celebrate a milestone birthday — his 60th — by giving gifts to all the people who’ve shaped his life and matter to him.

• Recipients ranged from kids and siblings to former colleagues and old friends.

✏️ Selecting a gift was the tough part, he writes. It had to have universal utility and appeal, and it had to be cheap enough to buy in bulk.

• He went with pencils. They were pink — a nod to his last name — and engraved with messages.
• It’s a small gift, but it really is the thought that counts. “When you give people a gift they’re not expecting, that can make them very happy,” Julian Givi, a West Virginia University professor who studies gift-giving, told Pink.

The bottom line: Generosity takes many forms — from cooking dinner for a sick friend to donating to the local winter coats drive. Flipping birthdays is another way to give back.”

* * * * *

Mariner has always wanted his friends and family to be as happy as possible. He has collected all your birthday dates and will dutifully wait for you to have the best birthday possible by sending him your gift.

Ancient Mariner