There are certain thoughts and certain questions, when they occur, hits hard.. Takes a long time to snap out and come back to any sense of normalcy. What prompted this on, this time? (Well, this line reads as though it happens sometimes, doesn’t it?)

What is it that makes it so difficult to say a ‘thank you’ when others compliment?

Just this morning a friend said, “Hey, you look as though you are slimmer and much so in this dress.” And there goes my reply to her, “Oh, I have actually put on weight and want to reduce my weight.” Another friend who was listening to this dialogue said, “Just say thank you first.” Sheepishly, I did..

This made me recall a movie where Deepika Padukone goes for a dinner date.. Her date looks at her and says, “You look gorgeous.” Her reply was a “Thank you”.. There was no other statement she made and she accepted it so gracefully.. I immediately went back to the many times when someone says something nice to me and I respond with NOT a ‘thank you’ but with why what they are saying, is different from what I feel. There are a multitude of thoughts that run in me when others compliment..

– I am not as good as they say I am..

– I am not the only one who is responsible for whatever happened to go well. So I can’t really take the credit for it..

– I need to go a long way more and what I have come so far, is much less a distance..

– Many others are much better than me, I am only a small piece in the large puzzle..

– I have not done anything big, so why so much of praise?

There are indeed those odd times when I genuinely feel good about the compliments others pay but that’s few and far between..

But what about the person who pays the compliment? They certainly look at things differently. They appreciate not because they have to but because they feel the need to and genuinely so.. As the negation and rejection of their appreciation is happening, they may

– feel lost for words and not knowing what to say

– wonder why what they are saying is negated, when they are genuine in what they are saying

– think if they have said something wrong

– feel why someone would want to think so low of themselves

– wonder if all their justification of their appreciation, is worth it at all..

I have sometimes wondered if all that negation and denial of another person’s appreciation and compliments, is an aspect of ‘being humble’. I read recently that ‘a person who says they are humble is also a person who is manipulative’. I thought that it was a HUGE statement to make and was searching for an explanation to understand it; but as I write this blog, this statement seems to make a lot of sense. This humility actually manipulates the other person to vehemently state their appreciation many more times and this makes us feel nice? Hearing the appreciation again and again? This is not to say that one deliberately or consciously attempts to manipulate but is there an unmanifest expression that gets manifested by a situation, many times unknown to us? An expression of wanting to hear appreciation over and over again?

A simple word ‘thank you’ is so difficult to say, because there many layers that have to be pushed aside for the word to be said.

If others are helping us to unravel what and who we are, what better way than to say a ‘thank you’ for the big help that they are rendering!!!

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