"So I have a thing for us to do," ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
minnehaha Karen told me. "Be ready to go at 5:45 pm on Tuesday night."
"Go where?"
"It's a surprise."
I thought about what she might have in mind to do in the second half of October. "I'm not particularly fond of haunted houses," I said a little doubtfully.
"No, nothing like that. It's something that should be sweet and fun. Nothing gross, I promise."
Okay.
When I got into the car, she handed me a stack of blank postcards:
Front:
Back:
And then we had an entirely satisfying time driving around looking for houses decked out to the max for Halloween, as the harvest moon, glowing orange, rose above the city. When we found one where the homeowners had exerted themselves with panache and creativity, we wrote: "To the spooky folks at..." and added the address. The postcards will be dropped into the mail, sent on their way to be a little surprise/day brightener, just to tell complete strangers, "I notice what you've done, and I appreciate you."
The whole experience gave me much food for thought, as I tried to analyze why I found the exercise to be so much fun. There's a difference between gratitude, I think, and appreciation. I was talking today with my Friday coffee group about why I've always found the common advice to people coping with depression to keep a gratitude journal to be unhelpful/smack of condescension: "well, you really have no reason to be sad; look at all you have to be GRATEFUL for!"
They understood instantly what I meant. "You were never getting depressed because you weren't grateful enough for good things in your life," Naomi Kritzer said. "You had genuinely awful things happening to you over the years, and of course you couldn't make them disappear by trying to ignore them."
But appreciation is different, Naomi pointed out. Appreciation is connection, and connection is powerfully effective at keeping people healthy and happy. As we have all discovered during the pandemic, haven’t we?
I have never found practicing appreciation to be oppressive at all. Telling other people that I appreciate them always makes me feel good, and I certainly love it when someone tells me that they appreciate me. Unexpected appreciation can also be a delightful surprise.
Appreciation
Click here to read about the 52 card project and see the year's gallery.
minnehaha Karen told me. "Be ready to go at 5:45 pm on Tuesday night." "Go where?"
"It's a surprise."
I thought about what she might have in mind to do in the second half of October. "I'm not particularly fond of haunted houses," I said a little doubtfully.
"No, nothing like that. It's something that should be sweet and fun. Nothing gross, I promise."
Okay.
When I got into the car, she handed me a stack of blank postcards:
Back:
And then we had an entirely satisfying time driving around looking for houses decked out to the max for Halloween, as the harvest moon, glowing orange, rose above the city. When we found one where the homeowners had exerted themselves with panache and creativity, we wrote: "To the spooky folks at..." and added the address. The postcards will be dropped into the mail, sent on their way to be a little surprise/day brightener, just to tell complete strangers, "I notice what you've done, and I appreciate you."
The whole experience gave me much food for thought, as I tried to analyze why I found the exercise to be so much fun. There's a difference between gratitude, I think, and appreciation. I was talking today with my Friday coffee group about why I've always found the common advice to people coping with depression to keep a gratitude journal to be unhelpful/smack of condescension: "well, you really have no reason to be sad; look at all you have to be GRATEFUL for!"
They understood instantly what I meant. "You were never getting depressed because you weren't grateful enough for good things in your life," Naomi Kritzer said. "You had genuinely awful things happening to you over the years, and of course you couldn't make them disappear by trying to ignore them."
But appreciation is different, Naomi pointed out. Appreciation is connection, and connection is powerfully effective at keeping people healthy and happy. As we have all discovered during the pandemic, haven’t we?
I have never found practicing appreciation to be oppressive at all. Telling other people that I appreciate them always makes me feel good, and I certainly love it when someone tells me that they appreciate me. Unexpected appreciation can also be a delightful surprise.
Click here to read about the 52 card project and see the year's gallery.