Gold Thought of the Week
Praise! “Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.” Samuel Johnson How do you feel when someone gives you a compliment or says something positive aboutyou ? How do you feel when you praise someone else? Sometimes the expression of appreciation makes us uncomfortable or we feel we don’t deserve the attention. But, for me, Samuel Johnson highlights some interesting food for thought and provides some important reminders. First, the questions he raises are thought provoking. How often do we give and receive praise? Is such giving and receiving really as rare as his comparison to the scarcity of diamonds and gold indicate? Does the lack of such expression really serve to increase its value when given? While I agree with Johnson that praise, compliments and expressions of appreciation towards others are rarer than we might think, his observation interests me because I disagree with his views on their importance. I would like to see us remember to say or do more things to value and appreciate each other more of the time. More acknowledgment, more highlighting what we’re doing right and more attention to what’s working could truly change our ways of feeling and of being. Might it not be the case on the psychological level if not on the monetary markets that the giving and receiving of more praise and appreciation could actually increase by leaps and bounds the ways we think about our own individual value? What do you think of these ideas, in what one or two ways this week might you take note how you feel when you receive appreciation, and how might you send out a few more good thoughts and praise to specific people?
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August 2015
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