Day 18: Thank you for your thoughts on thank yous!

Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas.

Day 18: Clearly my mother wasn’t the only one brainwashing kids about thank you notes

I love when a post gets people talking! Your input makes the conversation so much richer.

My post about thank you notes earlier this week — and specifically the story of how militant my mother was in enforcing writing them — drew numerous comments on Facebook. I’m sharing them here so everyone can get the wisdom of my friends:

Nayiri Mullinix my mom was similarly strict with thank you notes. at the time, i was irritated by the fact that she forced me to write them. now, i am irritated with people who neglect writing thank you notes.

 

Kristi McGarrity Robins My parents were thank you note enforcers also… have to say it rubbed off as now I make my kids do them also, the old fashioned handwritten and mailed variety! One of my pet peeves also is people who neglect writing thank you notes.

 

Barbara Carole Cain The note is a requirement and must be at least 3 sentences. If the kids were too young to write, they made a picture. It’s basic manners and I’m a believer in basic manners being used in daily life.

 

Zabrina Santiago-Lindsay Same protocols for thanks yous in the household I grew up in. So impressed upon me that if a gift has been received, I can not go to sleep at night if a thank you has not been written. I nearly hyperventilate at the thought. Am passing same etiquette down to my girls. but am hoping they don’t hyperventilate if it takes them a whole week to color and scribble pictures as thank yous! (the extent of their capacities at this point for most of them) :>)

 

Angie Lamoli Silvestry Thank you notes are not only a matter of civility, courtesy and gratitude, they are a sign of proper upbringing and good manners. My grandmother, mother and aunts were very strict over the matter. I am glad. I expect no less from my teenage daughters.

 

Is it just a coincidence that all of these comments came from women and that all the thank you note disciplinarians were mothers? Guys, do you have similar experiences?

 

And if so many of us have been taught the value of thank you notes as kids, why do many people save it for wedding and funeral etiquette?

 

Finally, chiming in on the all-female chatter was Thibault:

 

Thibault Devillers I’d rather say thank you to the people in person, it feels more true in my opinion…

 

Which is perfect foreshadowing for a post coming very soon. Thanks for setting me up, Thibault!

Day 17: Pay it forward

Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas.

Day 17: Give someone a gift that reminds you of your gratitude

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.

~William Arthur Ward

Need help with wrapping your gifts of gratitude? Click here for gift-wrapping pointers from eHow.

This week I am looking for ways to share the things I’m grateful for. I guess that’s like the gratitude golden rule? Or paying it forward?

Usually I advocate choosing gifts with the recipient in mind — what would he or she really like?

This is a twist: giving gifts to others to help remind me what I am grateful for. Not that I won’t still think of whether the recipient will like the gift, but I’m starting from my own gratitude then seeking a good receiver for it.

For example:

• I am grateful I got a good education at Central Michigan University so I will make a donation to the journalism department there
• I am grateful my colleague, Jay, often treats me to a latte so I’ll be sure to return that favor
• I am grateful for homecooked meals in our cozy apartment so I recently cooked up a storm for an impromptu Sunday night dinner party to share a homecooked meal with friends. I’ll be looking to do that again soon.

If you’re broke, remember gifts don’t have to be extravagant or expensive. How about giving away a book or CD you already own? Or giving the gift of your time or talents?

Looking for inspiration to get you started on the gift-giving path?

• If you’d like to make a donation inspired by something you love, Charity Navigator evaluates their efficiency and effectiveness to make sure your money does what you hope it will. Here is a list of their four-star charities.
• Check out Catherine’s blog, Flamingo Room. Catherine’s been doing 29 days of giving, one of the main sources of inspiration for my Month of Thanksgiving.
• Catherine was in turn inspired by Cami Walker’s book 29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life. Check out 29 Gifts to read about how gift giving wasn’t just good for the recipients but transformative for Cami.

I’m also really grateful every time I open our mailbox and find a hand-written letter, so I can combine today’s pay it forward exercise with yesterday’s plan of sending thank you letters. It’s a two for one!

What do you love that you can share with someone else? Have you felt more gratitude when you’ve given a gift to someone else?

Day 16: Saying thank you

Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas.

Day 16: Remember when your parents would prompt you with “What do you say? Say thank you.”

My mom was the thank you note enforcer. Writing them was non negotiable.

When I graduated from high school, Mom took custody of my graduation presents. Only after I had written a thank you note could I get possession of each gift.

Crane doesn't just make lovely thank you notes -- they also offer a PDF with tips on writing thank you notes. Click here to read it.

So I admit to having a strong bias but I believe in the power of the thank you note — especially of the hand written and mailed variety.

It seems obvious to me that if someone has done something I’m grateful for, it’s a wonderful thing to say so and to say thank you. It’s one thing to make a note in my gratitude journal, which is good for my heart, but what if I can make the other person feel good, too?

Usually thank you notes are transaction specific — thanks for the gift, for inviting us to the party, for the job interview.

But this week I’m writing thank you notes for a variety of things and people I’m grateful for, even if my gratitude is big and broad or if the inspiring act was long ago.

If you stumble for the right words when you’re writing thank yous, the good folks at Write Express offer some pointers — these are just a few, you’ll find more on their site:

• Stick to the point.
• Be sincere–most people can sense when you aren’t being honest.
• Be specific and include details from the event. Make your letter stand out.
• Reaffirm your gratitude or restate the compliment.
• Close with either an expression of thanks or an indication of your intention to continue contact.

Just to get warmed up a little:

Jim Wojcik, thank you for all your wisdom and patience not only as our college newspaper adviser but also as my job placement expert and frequent career therapist. I’m not sure where I’d be professionally without you and I will be forever grateful.

Julie Peterson, thank you for hiring me to be a health writer at the University of Michigan News Service when I’d never been a medical writer in my life. You trusted me to figure it out on the job. Thank you for that chance and for showing such confidence in me.

Karen Joseph (now Johnson), thanks for being my life raft of a roommate at one of the lowest points in my life. You probably didn’t know what you were signing on for when you rented my spare bedroom but I’m grateful for the kindness and support you showed me.

Cecil Shepherd, thank you for welcoming me into the University of Michigan family in New York City. You probably more than any other person made New York seem doable for a girl who’d never moved away from her home state. Your encouragement and enthusiasm made it so much less intimidating and I’m grateful.

This week I’ll be doing some proper thank yous, with pen and paper like Mom taught me, in addition to some social media versions on Facebook and Twitter, too.

Who deserves a thank you note from you? It doesn’t have to be big life-changing events — what about the colleague who’s helped you or the neighbor who always waters the plants and gets your mail when you’re on vacation? Or maybe it is big stuff: the teacher who inspired you or the friend you couldn’t imagine life without?

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Day 15: Doing the gratitude dance

Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas.

Day 15: How do you express your gratitude?

The GratiDudes made this video below encouraging people to first make a daily list of the things you’re grateful for — then to do a dance about that gratitude.

The dance looks a lot like “Where the Hell is Matt?” but whether the approach is brand new, it struck me that dancing might be a great way to express feelings that are perhaps hard to put into words.

Do you feel like you need to do something more to celebrate your gratitude? What helps you express your gratitude?

Day 14: A quick recap of Month of Thanksgiving so far

Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas.

Day 14: We’re about halfway through the Month of Thanksgiving. How are you doing?

Sunday is a day of rest so I’ll take it a little easy on the Month of Thanksgiving and just recap where we’ve been so far.

• I launched the Month of Thanksgiving on Oct. 26. The idea is to lead up to Thanksgiving by reflecting on the many reasons I have to give thanks. It’s a bit like the notion of Lent, of having a season that prepares you for the celebration to come.
• Then I explored some of the ways to keep gratitude top of mind, including gratitude journals, the Love List Project and posting thoughts of thanksgiving on Facebook and Twitter.
• For the last week, I wrote about some of the reasons I’m not always as grateful as I know I should be: wanting things I don’t have, being frustrated with things and angry at other people, and not having enough time. Click here to read more on these themes.

That gets us to today.

In the coming weeks, I plan to write about some specific ideas of what to be grateful for and how to express that gratitude, as well as some ways to potentially bring all of this together with giving real, meaningful thanks on Thanksgiving.

So a few questions for you:

1. Have you tried any new ways to be more grateful? Has anything worked for you? Or not worked for you?
2. What suggestions do you have related to gratitude? Either ways to be grateful or things you’re grateful for?
3. Do you have a Thanksgiving tradition that emphasizes real gratitude?
   
4. What other observations would you like to share about gratitude?

Day 13: What some others are saying about gratitude

Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas.

Day 13: Taking a look at what a few other sources say about gratitude

I am hardly the first person to think of the idea of being more grateful. The benefit of participating in a trend is that I can share some of the best of what others are saying.

Elizabeth Scott’s Stress Management Blog

Elizabeth Scott writes a stress management blog on About.com, and she kicked off a gratitude program in October with a focus on increasing gratitude to reduce stress.

Developing an attitude of gratitude toward the people, things and events in your life is a life-affirming and effective way to strengthen your emotional resilience and reduce stress, among other things. Maintaining a gratitude journal makes it easy to get in the habit of focusing on the positive in your life, while also reaping the benefits of journaling.

Doing a gratitude journal? That sounds like a great idea!

You can follow Elizabeth on Twitter here.

The Art of Choosing Joy

Want some help making a pretty gratitude journal? Click here for some crafty pointers from Kolette Hall.

A blog called The Art of Choosing Joy has referred several visitors to my Month of Thanksgiving project.

Here Choosing Joy author Kolette Hall writes about making a gratitude journal. She gives some crafty tips on do-it-yourself pretty gratitude journals, like the one at the right.

You might better appreciate her enthusiasm for gratitude journals after reading her profile, which includes this:

My husband, Jason is a quadriplegic. He broke his neck when he was 15 years old at the C5-C6 vertebrae. After we met in college at Brigham Young University, we married in 1992. Five years later he was in a life-threatening car accident which left him in the hospital for 13 months and then a series of hospital stays and about 20 surgeries over the next six years.

But in spite of our circumstances, I have found that life can be good; that I have the choice – to choose how I feel about my life and my situation. I get to choose my joy. In spite of the adversity and hardship that comes from being the caregiver of someone dealing with intense health issues, I have decided that I wouldn’t go back and change the challenge of dealing with Jason’s car accident.

1,000 Awesome Things

If you’re having gratitude journal writer’s block, you might want to check out the funny blog 1,000 Awesome Things, which celebrates hundreds of everyday pleasures including last-minute Halloween costumes, the surprise left-turn arrow and shooing  a fly outside without having to kill it.

See, you don’t have to solve world hunger to give thanks.

Just one example, which might be appropriate for the weekend:

#658 When you meet up with a group of friends and they stop talking to celebrate your arrival

Sometimes you’re late for the date.

Stepping into the dark restaurant, shaking off your umbrella, squeezing past the bar, you don’t know what you’re gonna get: Who’s gonna be here? Have they already ordered? Will there even be a chair?

If you’re like me, baby butterflies flap in your stomach when you stumble into Tonight’s Social Scene for the first time. Brushing rain off your eyebrows, unzipping your jacket, you smile nervously as you spot your friends and walk over to their crowded table in the back.

And if your entrance is marked by heads turning, forks dropping, fists raising, and loud cheers, it means you’re hanging with a great group. So smile and accept their little Welcome Package of hugs and high-fives.

It’s gonna be a great night.

AWESOME!

How are you doing with Month of Thanksgiving? Have you especially enjoyed any of the ideas you’ve seen? Has anything failed completely?

Day 12: Too much to do, not enough time to do it

Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas.

Day 12: Making time to give thanks

All this week, I have been writing about the many reasons I’m not as grateful as I should be: wanting what I don’t have, being frustrated by life’s annoyances, regret, anger at other people.

Are you racing against time like a sprinter?

There’s yet another reason that’s perhaps less toxic but in some ways more insidious: lack of time.

I’ve noticed that the socially appropriate way to answer when someone asks how you’re doing is not necessarily “fine,” but instead “busy.” Maybe you add a flourish like “crazy busy” or “swamped.”

If we’re all busy racing around, even the best intentioned of us can find the week has slipped away without getting to the gym or making dinner at home. Writing in my gratitude journal every day takes time and maybe at the end of the day, I realize I haven’t done it and I just want to go to sleep.

Here are two ways to cope with lack of time:

1. Do less

You’re already skeptical, aren’t you? You’re busy at work, you’ve got obligations at home, maybe the kids need to be shuttled to lessons, you’ve got social plans if you’re lucky, and you can’t see how you could possibly do less.

One of my favorite blogs, Zen Habits, has suggestions on just that.

It may seem paradoxical that Do Less can mean you’re more productive — and if you define “productive” as meaning “get more done” or “do more”, then no, Do Less won’t lead to that kind of productivity.

But if instead you define “productivity” as a means of making the most of your actions, of the time you spend working (or doing anything), of being as effective as possible, then Do Less is the best way to be productive.

Consider: I can work all day in a flurry of frenetic activity, only to get a little done, especially when it comes to lasting achievement. Or I can do just a couple things that take an hour, but those are key actions that will lead to real achievement. In the second example, you did less, but the time you spent counted for more.

The post goes on to give specifics about how to do less, including cutting back on buying, busy work, over managing and over parenting and complaining. Check it out here.

I have tried to do less this year, cutting out some activities I was doing out of obligation and saying yes less cautiously. Still, it’s a work in progress, so #2 is still pretty helpful.

2. Make use of small chunks of time

Keith Ferrazzi, whose book Who’s Got Your Back I pimp regularly, has a helpful free e-mail newsletter. He provides practical tips on improving your relationships, including this one:

Use your taxi time. We all have wasted time slots; the grocery store line is another. They’re wasted because we’re not prepared to use them.

For me, this has meant spending time on the subway writing in my gratitude journal. It could just as easily mean thinking about the reasons I’m grateful while I blowdry my hair or while I’m waiting for a meeting to start.

Does being too busy get in the way of taking time to be grateful? If so, how do you deal with that?

Day 11: Forgiveness … forgiveness

Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas.

Day 11: Giving thanks for the people who have hurt us

It was the prophet Don Henley who said:

I’ve been tryin’ to get down
to the heart of the matter
But my will gets weak
and my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it’s about…forgiveness
Forgiveness

If you wanted to go with a more classic call to action, how about “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

This week I’m blogging about the reasons I’m not as grateful as I know I should be, including wanting what I don’t have, being frustrated by life’s annoyances, and regret.

But let’s really be honest about where we invest a lot of our time — being angry at and resentful of other people.

Living in New York is great for me as an amateur sociologist. I get a lot of opportunity to casual observe (John might call it “eavesdrop on”) conversations, whether that’s on the sidewalk, on the subway or in restaurants where the tables are too close together.

It strikes me how often I overhear passionate complaints about the offenses of another person. Whether it’s about a coworker, a boyfriend, an ex-wife, the consistent theme seems to be that the other person has wronged me, I’m the victim and it’s just not fair.

As my mom used to say, life’s not fair.

Years ago, when I took Dale Carnegie, one of the biggest lessons I internalized was seeing the world through the other person’s eyes. If someone has hurt me, I try to think about what might have motivated him or her to do that.

That doesn’t necessarily mean I’m not bitter.

So during the Month of Thanksgiving, I’m going to take that a step further. When I feel myself being angry at someone, I’m going to search for something to be grateful for.

Let me try with an extreme example: my ex-fiance devastated me when he broke off our engagement and admitted to cheating on me.

• I’m grateful that he broke it off before we got married instead of going through with it in spite of his doubts about us.
• I’m grateful that in the months after the break up, we had a few open, honest talks about why the relationship ended. It was crushing to hear that he’d never wanted to marry me but he didn’t want to disappoint me. Still, it was valuable information in understanding where we’d gone wrong.
• I’m even grateful for the heart break, because it prompted me to do a lot of soul searching about what I’d done to contribute to the failure of the relationship and about what I wanted in a husband.

Maybe there aren’t as many lessons to be learned in every aggravating relationship. If you’re just mad because the cashier at the grocery store was rude, you might not grow as a person.

But what if I try to find gratitude in the more common, everyday moments of interpersonal strife? If I’m irritated with a coworker, for example, can I find a reason to be grateful — that I have a job and therefore have coworkers? that I really like a lot of the people I work with? that maybe I’m working on improving the source of the irritation?

Can you be grateful for people who have hurt you or upset you?

Day 10: Regrets, I’ve had a few

Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas.

Day 10: Instead of regretting the past, being grateful for the present

This week I’m blogging about the reasons I’m not as grateful as I know I should be — I kicked off the series of gratitude stoppers here.

Besides spending energy wanting what I don’t have, and being frustrated by life’s annoyances, another thing that distracts me from gratitude is regret.

With the benefit of hindsight, my life is peppered with events I wish I could do over. Mostly they’re times when I haven’t treated people as well as they deserved.

It’s easy for me to invest a lot of time turning those events over and over in my mind and beating myself up for them. I would like to reclaim some of that time and energy to redirect it into gratitude.

Does that mean giving myself a pass for the mistakes I’ve made? Absolutely not.

Instead, I’m looking for ways to learn from those experiences:

• think about why I made the choices I did
• think about what I’d do differently if I had the chance
• apologize to those I’ve hurt

And yes, I’d even like to be grateful for those regretable memories. Because as long as I’m paying attention, maybe I learned something that will help me become more of the person I’d like to be.

Sort of like touching a hot stove helps you learn that it’s a bad idea to touch a hot stove.

This video looks a bit like an infomercial because of the corny graphics but I like the message of learning to forgive yourself.

Can you give thanks for mistakes you’ve made in the past and lessons you learned as a result?

Day Nine: I want I want I want

Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas.

Day Nine: Being grateful for what you have instead of wanting what you don’t have

Over the years, I’ve read various studies about how watching television encourages us to want more — whether it’s absorbing the advertising or comparing our lifestyles to those we see on the screen, the tube shapes our desires.

For example, University of Zurich researcher Bruno Frey found that watching TV made people more materialistic. (An article in Popular Psychology News has more details.) Researchers at Hunter College analyzed data going back to the 1950s and found television was associated with increased debt.

In a society that made Paris Hilton a role model for being a super rich party girl, it’s easy to find yourself on the aspirational treadmill.

Reading the Pottery Barn catalog is a sure trigger for envy for me. How could I not want a pergola with a fireplace and a view of vineyards?

Wouldn’t you be happier with a nicer, newer car? A bigger house? A cool new cell phone?

Living in New York is in some ways good at limiting the desire for more — in a small apartment with no basement, attic or garage, you can only bring in so much more. And yet, living around so many rich and/or fashionable people, it’s hard not to compare. Her shoes are nicer than mine. Their apartment is better. Why does he get a Town Car with a driver when I have to take the subway?

Yesterday I wrote that I’m looking at the things I hate to try to find something in them to be grateful for.

I’d like to try that same sort of redirect on the things I find myself yearning for.

I want a bigger apartment — but I’m grateful that I get the experience of living in New York. Real estate is more expensive here in part because so many people want to live in this amazing city, so the trade off is less space and fewer closets.

I want someone to pay me to write a book about farmers markets — and I’m grateful to find such pleasure in writing, shopping at markets and cooking.

I want a summer home on a beach someplace — but I’m grateful we got to take a great vacation to Block Island last summer where we got beach time with our friends Rob and Lara. I’m also grateful John and I are talking about a long-term plan that might involve more beach time.

Can you find something to give thanks for in the things you want?