Gratitude: Your Emotional Salary

Yes, I finally found motivation to write again. Can bloggers get writer's block? Because apparently I did. And now the words are back.

Anyway, gratitude. Such a simple thing, yet so constantly underestimated. I'm not just talking about the two words (thank you) that sometimes are thrown around so carelessly but appreciation that is sometimes unspoken and not so obviously stated.

This semester, at Sewanee, I am helping to co-ordinate the Gratitude Project for its year (and my second helping to run it). What this entails is thank-you notes written to every single employee of the University of the South. Professors, policemen, chefs, custodians, everyone gets them. They're written by students, and distributed toward the end of the semester. Everyone gets at least one, although some people may get more. While it wasn't the easiest thing to organise and get done, for me, hearing feedback from those who got the notes made this more than worth it for me last year. One person last year thanked us for the gift that we had given the community, and I recognised that gratitude was indeed that; a gift that we give to others. When interviewed for the student newspaper, I tried to explain the importance of the Gratitude Project by comparing it to a salary. Employees get paid money for what they do, and that takes care of their physical needs, but gratitude is a kind of emotional salary, although so much more than just that.

Gratitude is definitely an important part of my life; I like being able to let the people around me know that they are appreciated; for what they are and for what they do.
Thank you all for reading this!