Pay for your own sneakers once and every gift after that starts to feel heavier, in a good way.

Prices are abstract until you have earned the money yourself. Once you know how many hours a pair of shoes costs in your own labor, every gift gets quietly converted into that same unit, and things that used to be objects become somebody’s time. The weight is not guilt. It is accuracy about what was handed to you.

Buy one thing you want with money you earned, start to finish, and keep the receipt next to the hours it took. Then look at the last few presents you were given and do the same arithmetic. Say something to whoever gave you one, now that you can read the price properly.