compliments

No matter who you are, we all experience when our friends tell us something that we are jealous about and we don’t even want to compliment and/or congratulate them on say; a promotion, a new sweater, or an A they got on a project. Of course, I asked myself why. It definitely depends on who we are talking about. For this post let’s focus on friend-to-friend relationships (thanks Travis). The reason why we sometimes don’t compliment is for the simple reason of jealously. YukI really dislike that word. For those of you who are not clear with its complete meaning:

Jealous (Adjective) Feeling envy of someone and their achievements and advantages.

Jealousy is a natural feeling whether we like it or not but it’s all in how we express it which makes it natural vs simply putbitchy. This relates to giving compliments because we obviously think of them all day long. A friend gets a haircut or particularly looks great one daywhy wouldn’t you compliment them on it?

I think the reason we don’t is because we envy their new look or their great accomplishments. But really, how is avoiding the ‘elephant in the corner’ by not saying something going to help? Will it actually hurt you to compliment on their successes? As a true friend, shouldn’t you only want the best for the people in your life? Think about it, if you celebrate on the positive things, doesn’t that make a more positive environment for you as well? Yes, it does.

Earlier today I got a compliment from Lindsay. I could seriously look at it over and over, and each time I smile. This would probably explain why I was screeching/singing at Petro Canada in the line up. This simple compliment completely changed my mind frame from average to fantastic! It also made me more courageous, positive, energetic and confident in what I’m doing. To know someone in my life thinks that what I do is great, makes me want to push that much harder.

Lindsay wasn’t threatened or intimidated by what I was doing and had the courtesy to express how she truly felt about me. Thank youit’s people like you who make our society a better and more positive place.

You see giving a simple compliment can completely change the mood, energy, and environment of that person. They could have been having a disastrous day and suddenly a genuine compliment is given out and suddenly they have endorphins running through their body.

I feel like in society people jump right to the negative, the problem, the flawwhich is automatically setting the tone to failure. It’s like when you finish a project at school/work that you spent endless hours on and your teachers first response is “You should have done this … this was wrong … etc” Suddenly the overall impression on your assignment has a negative connotation to it. What if the rest of the project went well? The point is, if that teacher started with the positives, then later saying what the student could have improved onthat student wouldn’t walk away with his/her dreams crushed.

There is also a difference between giving a genuine compliment and giving a ‘phony’ compliment. Both very different. What was the reasoning behind it? Was it because you really think that person deserves it or was it because your trying to suck-up to that person and you thought it was a good idea to compliment them on the pattern of their socks.

All I’m saying is complimenting someone when they deserve it will help our world to become a more positive place. This relates back to something we call Karmain which what you give out, is what you’ll get back. When your friend does something great, or you appreciate a gesture someone doeslet them know how you feel. It will make them happy and in turn, make you feel good about it.