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What Would It Be Like If Today Were Appreciation Day?
What might happen if we told people we appreciate them, with no agenda attached? A few thoughts, a little neuroscience, and a story about a contractor who probably thought a pipe had burst.
What would it be like if we declared today as Appreciation Day? Not the Hallmark version, where there’s something to buy and a card to sign and a reminder on the calendar, but a day where we simply notice the things we appreciate and actually say them (this goes beyond gratitude).
I’ve been thinking about this all morning, and what keeps coming up is how little it would cost in terms of time and effort. It could be a sentence, maybe thirty seconds.
Almost ten years ago, a contractor redid our shower. He did beautiful work, the kind of care and craftsmanship you notice every single morning and then, after a while, stop noticing because it fades into the background of (that’s our brain’s habituation mechanism at work!). A few weeks ago I texted him after not being in contact for years. Maybe for a second he wondered which pipe had burst. But that morning I was looking at our shower and just wanted him to know that my wife and I still appreciate the work he did, and that we think about it often (great mindfulness practice to unhabituate and appreciate!). What occurred to me afterward was that the appreciation had been sitting there for ten years. The craftsmanship was still there. I had simply never said it to him beyond our original thank you for a job well done. I wonder if much of…
