Do you ever feel like you're unappreciated? You keep doing all these favors for other people and most of the time you can't even get them to say thank you? I feel this way sometimes too, so I decided to do something about it.
We have all heard that famous quote by Gandhi, "Be the change you wish to see in the world," and I have really come to believe this is something that we should all take to heart. During my senior year of high school, I was really busy! I was the class vice-president trying to plan senior skip day and graduation. I was the yearbook editor trying to create the best yearbook our school had ever had. I was also always working hard and rushing around trying to find ways to make everyone happy even though I was told that was an impossible task.
I would have many moments throughout the week where I would find myself frustrated at the fact that it had felt like I was doing so much for other people and instead of getting a thank you, I would somehow end up making more people mad. After graduation and all the stress was over, my best friend gave me a book filled with encouraging letters from people at my school and from my church that really made me feel like serving others was really worth it. After crying tears of joy and being overwhelmed with appreciation, I ended up learning something that day.
What I learned is that saying thank you really does make a difference. Whether it is a giant book of encouragement or even the smallest "thank you" after a good deed, it make us feel better. So I started thinking about how I could get more people to say thank you and to say it more often. That's when Gandhi's words of wisdom came to my mind. I couldn't force people to say thank you, and if I could it probably wouldn't be genuine anyway.
What I could do, though, is start saying it more myself - be the change I wanted to see in the world. I decided to take it one step further, though, instead of just simply saying thank you, I decided I would write out a thank you letter in pen and paper, on a real thank you card, once a week. Once a week I would find someone who made a difference in my life that week, or just did something to make me smile, and I would tell them thank you.
Now I don't tell people this in order to magnify my own accomplishments. I haven't quite changed the world with this idea, and I haven't made a huge difference globally. However, I have made a difference in a select few people's hearts, and I hope that they will know how much it means to them and want to share those feelings with someone else. I am writing this because I really want others to start showing gratitude as much as they can, and every time someone tells you thank you, take it as full encouragement to keep serving others.
It's easy to let the world get us down whenever we are trying to please it, but as long as we keep serving others and express gratitude whenever they serve us, we can slowly make the world a better place. In this busy world that we live in, it only takes ten minutes out of your day to make someone else's! Write a thank you letter to someone who deserves it because we all deserve to hear the words "thank you."
