“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.” - Mother Theresa
I’ve always loved this quote by Mother Theresa. It reminds me of when I was young. I always took every remark to heart, no matter how innocent a comment might be. I don’t flatter people lightly. If I tell someone I’m proud of or praise them for something, it is because I mean it. That is not to say that I don’t compliment people – I do. I firmly believe that the words you say can change the world, sometimes in not-so-subtle ways, so I always try to find something good to say. Something honest and heartfelt. Because you never know when a person needs that tiny bit of affirmation. So if I can, I try to find something positive to say, and if I like a stranger’s dress or how she fixes her hair, I’ll often let her know.
That is not to say I never have anything negative to say. My family can attest that I complain about things and disparage anything that is not to my liking. It’s not something I’m proud of, and maybe my penchant for compliments is, in some way, an attempt to balance the scale. I also know that the least little compliment someone utters to me can totally make my day.
I grew up in a household where complaints were the norm and compliments and affirmation just did not happen. Rather than being proud of my A- in school, my father would push me to “do better.” My mother (and her mother) often made rude comments about other people, such as the way they dressed or their weight. There was often a lot of the “pot calling the kettle ‘black.’” I hung onto those comments. Sometimes, a joke, insult, or critique might stick with me for years or even decades. Whether they were directed at me or not. Whether they were true or not. Those words left scars.
When I was a Girl Scout Leader, we did a project designed to see how bullying and words can cause irreparable damage. Without explaining the purpose of the project, we instructed the girls to use poster paper to make a life-size cut-out of themselves. While they colored and decorated their likeness, we discussed the power of positive affirmations. When they were done, they passed their creations around the room, and the other girls tore the images into pieces. We explained that each chunk was an insult, injury, or indignity they had suffered. Then we had them reassemble their figure using only tape. For each piece that had to be taped together, someone said something nice about them. This illustrates the fact that even though kind words help put the pieces back together, you can never really undo the damage that harsh words cause.
We live in a world where the evening news, mud-slinging politics, and out-of-control social media constantly bombard us with negative comments, insults, and even lies. Wouldn’t it be nice to hear something positive for a change? What if everyone spent just one day without saying anything negative? A whole day of speaking only positive truths? Of complementing one another instead of tearing each other down?
In 2022, I wrote a blog post about complaining, and at the end, I challenged myself and our readers to try to spend one day without doing it. This time, in honor of National Compliment Day on January 24, I’m challenging myself to take it one step further. Every time I want to criticize something, I want to find something positive to say. Maybe I can make someone’s day. Because I know that if someone were to compliment me, it would make mine.
