'I washed the dishes and swept the floor', Jamie might say. And I, like the horrid wife I am, will answer:

'What do you want, a flippin' medal?'

Because some things you shouldn't expect a thankyou for.

Some things are given - you pull your weight, and the thanks come back in kind. It's this reciprocal act of kindness. We show people thankyou all the time. He makes me coffee in bed, I pick up a pack of crumpets from Aldi because he loves them. To demand a 'thankyou' suggests that you are doing it for some kind of praise or extrinsic reward, when you 'should' be doing it out of love, or kindness, or due care. Stand up for an old lady on the tram. Open a door for a man struggling with boxes. Don't huff when they don't manage a 'thankyou' - because then you are showing you're doing it for the accolades, not because it's it's own reward to help people.

However, it's bloody nice to be thanked, isn't it?

Sometimes we work really hard at what we do, and people don't realise how nice it is to be appreciated. There's a tendency in work places to either have empty gestures of appreciation - for example, here's a morning tea for a great job by staff this week - or only pick you up when things go wrong.

We all know it feels touching and humbling and good to be appreciated.

Like this email that came to my husband this week:

Hello Mr Riverflows* (not his real name)
Just a quick note to give you some feedback about Luke. He is absolutely loving your class and he repeats the whole lesson at the dinner table. You have ignited a spark and it is such a joy to have the kids come home from school and want to share everything they've learnt. I love seeing his curiosity and intrigue take him places.
Thank you for your great work. It is really appreciated by Luke and his parents!
Regards
Parent

To say my husband's insides warmed is an understatement. As an educator, he finds teaching it's own reward - to see kids light up with curiousity, to see their joy at 'a-ha' moments, to feel hope in how amazing the young are, to help and support kids who may not have had that in their life before. It's a noble career.

But to have an email from a parent like this makes him feel really good.

It makes me wonder why there isn't more of these words of appreciation and encouragement in our life. If we appreciate them ourselves, if not wish we had them, why don't we pay it forward with words of appreciation to others?

Perhaps it's a bit of assumption bias - we assume that someone already knows they are appreciated. Sometimes it feels awkward - especially if we're raised without appreciation being expressed in our own families. It can feel as if we're opening ourselves up, and we might feel as if we will be rejected or we will be taken the wrong way. If we recieve praise awkwardly, what if the other person does as well, and what do we do with that?

Then of course, we're mostly distracted. We forget to say thankyou. We might feel it, but in the busy pace of life, we forget to say it.

Yet think about the times you have shared words of encouragement and appreciation. How has it landed? Inevitably, it's well recieved. There's a little dopamine hit ourselves for helping someone and making someone else feel good.

We're biologically wired for it - showing appreciation helps build trust, and community.

I am even going to go as far as to say it's an evolutionary survival tool.

If I helped you gather berries and hunt down the mammoth and then acknowledged you, maybe you're help me again. It's a social cohesion tactic - and communities with cohesion are more likely to feast together.

Then there's all those buzzy warm neurochemical bonuses - dopamine and oxytocian are designed to make us feel connected and happier - woo hoo, and dammit, if it feels good, I'm doing it again, and again.

It also helps reduce stress hormones (fuck you, cortisol) and activates our parasympathetic nervous system. That's both for the person giving it, and recieving it. It's not just about being polite, it's about real physiological benefits.

Saying thanks to my husband, and he saying it back, perhaps isn't just manners, but about a hard wired survival code. It helps us feel more connected, and we trust that we have each others backs.

If you're the kind of person that forgets to say to someone that they're appreciated, or maybe you think that'll just feed someone's ego, maybe you need to think about manners and associated acts of appreciation and gratitude - a quick word, an email - benefits us as indidividuals and communities. Telling someone you really appreciate their qualities, their work and their efforts helps build partnerships, friendships, family bonds, workplace connections and happiness.

If you're been thinking about thanking someone this week because you truly appreciate them, perhaps this is your sign to do so.

Have you been appreciated lately? How do you know? How did it feel, and how did it make you feel about the person giving thanks?

With Love,

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