Everyday Musings > With compliments

A few days ago, V from artnlight.blogspot.com wrote to me saying she’s been reading all my blogs and she liked them and that she’d like to do a post on me on her blog. I was touched, and then, a day later, the post is up. I read it, and was overwhelmed by the generosity of her words and the spirit that makes her so open with her appreciation.

It led me to wonder about appreciation and how generous are we with it in our lives. There are plenty of times I’ve watched a great play and not gone backstage and congratulated the cast, either because I thought there must be enough people already doing that or because they surely must know they did a great job , so it’s ok. But last night, I watched a play, Karodon Me Ek, where one of the audience members shared her appreciation and wept in front of the cast, and left them so touched and inspired.

Among one of the countless quotes scribbled down in my college days was this - Everyone needs recognition for his accomplishments, but few people make the need known quite as clearly as the little boy who said to his father: “Let’s play darts. I’ll throw and you say ‘Wonderful!’“

Everyone wishes to be recognised for the things they do in life. It could be as simple as getting up to give a seat to an elderly person in a bus or jotting down notes for a friend who missed a lecture, or saving a seat for a friend in a busy canteen. It’s not always about verbally saying thank you. Sometimes, it’s just a warm smile, a squeeze of the hand, a slap on the back, a post-it note. Recognition is an acknowledgment that they made a difference.

Sharing appreciation is uncomfortable at most times. It seems like we’re being formal when we say the words ‘thank you’ to people close to us. Sometimes we go out of our way to recognise and appreciate strangers who help us but hardly ever acknowledge the ones closest to us. Like our parents or friends. Making a meal for mom and letting her take the day off, getting dad a DVD of the best cricket matches India ever played and watching it with him, taking care of the kids and giving your wife some time off, just sitting and listening to your grandparents...just to tell them that we care and appreciate what they do for us.

Teacher’s Day, Boss’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day...Hallmark makes a killing on these days by simply giving people a reason to say ‘thank you’ without being embarrassed about saying so. I’d got dad a tiny little plaque that said ‘world’s best dad’ when I was in school. It’s still one of his prized possessions and he keeps it somewhere he can see daily and talks of it and says ‘I’m the best daughter in the world’.

Appreciating opens up worlds we did not know exist. And when we acknowledge someone else, we’re really acknowledging humanity. And sometimes it’s also about acknowledging those who don’t seem to be on the same page as us. As Obama generously said in his speech – “And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.”

So today, I thank all of you who’ve been reading Everyday Musings; the ones who read every one of them, the ones who read just one, the ones who read none but saved it in their inboxes promising to read it soon, the ones who chose to follow the blog, the ones who chose not to, the ones who forwarded it to their friends, the ones who didn’t, the ones who look forward to them, the silent readers, the vocal ones, the ones who shared how you felt, what it did to you, what it didn’t. Thank you so much.