“Make it a habit to tell people thank you. To express your appreciation, sincerely and without the expectation of anything in return. Truly appreciate those around you, and you’ll soon find many others around you. Truly appreciate life and you’ll find that you have more of it.”-Ralph Marston
Today at work we threw a surprise 50th birthday party to a colleague. It included balloons, bulgogi, cake, and roasts. We used to have this tiny tradition years ago to monthly roast our coworkers with jest and love. But over time, this practice dissipated. But today it was magically brought back.
Written roasts were read aloud in a hard bound journal with accompanying pictures. My colleague was completely shocked, “gobsmacked” was the word he used repeatedly throughout our lunch. “I feel like this has been my life here the last four years and this is my going away party.” He was right. The vibe actually felt reminiscent of a finite bon voyage party. People expressed their love through joking and teasing. It made me begin to wonder, why do we wait for a big moment to share how we care about someone?
What keeps us from expressing our gratitude and appreciation on a frequent basis with those we care deeply about? Why are we selfish with our emotions, and keep them to ourselves? Is it laziness, fear, or the lack of wondering if it will be reciprocated? Life is too short to keep our emotions towards each other quiet. It needs to be heard.
In this day and age of social media posts, we are becoming wired to search for our friends to “like” or “love” an image or statement we post. The number of likes or comments we receive serves as a quantifier of our popularity. But when we scroll, we are mindless. It’s a time killer or procrastination tool. It doesn’t take much to click “like” on an image. This is why actually take the time to spend having a meal with someone, or writing out a card, or comprising a witty roast seems so valuable. We are putting a pause on our automatic robotic task driven life to show someone we care.
“Life is too sweet and too short to express our affection with just our thumbs. Touch is meant for more than just a keyboard.”-Kristin Armstrong
It Only Takes A Smile 