A Pat On My Back

Last Friday, Nikhil and grandpa came over to spend the weekend with us. Nikhil is our nephew and is 8 years old. All through Saturday our living room was scattered with toys on the floor, reminiscent of the following lines of Chris. G. Vaillancourt’s poem:

Toys are scattered about the floor.
Robots and Dinosaurs attack plastic soldiers.
The Grandsons are enacting a bloody battle….

I was trying to recollect the remaining lines when little Nikhil barged into the living room, uttering the following words, “Whoops!! I forgot to put them back to their places.” Everybody in our family follows the golden rule, “Back to places”, which me and my husband jokingly coined to increase domestic efficiency. The rule is: You can take anything, you can use anything, but you can never forget to put it back to its assigned place.

He picked the toys one at a time and stacked them as neatly as he could in the little almirah by the kitchen. While closing the door of the almirah, he looked at me expectantly. I smiled and said, “Well done.” As I uttered the words, “Well done”, I found him grinning from ear to ear with pride and satisfaction. This was followed by a series of activities throughout the day, and I found myself frequently saying, “good”, “nice” or “very good” for most of the activities he undertook that day. Whether it was reminding grandpa to take his medicines (though long after he consumed the morning meds), drawing, or his unsuccessful attempt at Sudoku, nothing went unappreciated that Saturday, which brings me to my first question, “If all of us know appreciation is required to keep moving forward, why does this flow of appreciation decline for grown-ups?” Be it home or the work place, we often hear adults complaining, “Whatever I do, it is never enough” or “How much ever you work for them, there is no appreciation.” One of my colleagues put it more intelligently, “If your boss isn’t complaining, it is appreciation in itself-Silent appreciation.”

For those of us, who fail to catch such subtle clues of appreciation, what works is self-appreciation. I am practising self-appreciation since last week, and it feels good. Self-appreciation, as opposed to boasting, is an agreement with oneself, that you value yourself and are willing to acknowledge your self-worth, regardless of what anybody thinks about you. I am sure, had appreciation been tangible, an economist would have included it as an example in his definition of “Scarce commodities”. Also, as independent and mature adults should we wait for anyone to appreciate us, when we can do the job ourselves?

This morning after preparing breakfast, I whispered to myself, “Well done.” I also gave myself small doses of appreciation for all the tasks that I performed, irrespective of the enormity of the task. If putting clothes in the washing machine was “good”, folding the dried clothes was “very good.” I gave myself an A for carving out time and reading a book on healthy living. I gave an A plus for the power nap that I took in the afternoon. Why not? After all, I gave my body the rest it so much deserved.  These days the after-dinner walks are so refreshing, as I know I am doing the right thing for our health. And, as I pen down my thoughts on paper, my mind is already whispering, “Great going, Sreedevi.”