{"id":380,"date":"2013-11-09T02:25:52","date_gmt":"2013-11-09T02:25:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/reslife\/?p=380"},"modified":"2013-11-09T02:25:52","modified_gmt":"2013-11-09T02:25:52","slug":"gratitude-giving-thanks-and-showing-appreciation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/reslife\/2013\/11\/09\/gratitude-giving-thanks-and-showing-appreciation\/","title":{"rendered":"Gratitude: Giving Thanks and Showing Appreciation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By Tyler Pau, Assistant Director of Residence Life<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Leaves are changing color\u2026they are also falling pretty quick.\u00a0 It\u2019s getting consistently cooler, and we just did the big daylight savings clock adjustment.\u00a0 We are deep into autumn, my friends.\u00a0 Halloween is gone and now Thanksgiving is fast approaching.\u00a0 Every year around this time I\u2019m struck by the concept of gratitude.\u00a0 Gratitude is considered to be \u201cthe quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.\u201d\u00a0 Thinking about this ripples out and brings up other questions: How does one show gratitude?\u00a0 How do you live gratefully?\u00a0 What does it mean to be authentically thankful?\u00a0 How do you show people your appreciation?<\/p>\n<p>I recently received an email from a parent thanking our staff for some timely, professional, and caring service they received.\u00a0 It was extremely refreshing.\u00a0 Now, people often extend thank yous as commonplace pleasantries.\u00a0 That\u2019s important and polite.\u00a0 I appreciate it.\u00a0 But there is something especially impacting about someone taking time and effort to go out of their way to show appreciation and gratitude.\u00a0 This parent wrote and listed off by name the people involved and thanked them each for their respective roles.\u00a0 It was impressive and his thoughts were thorough.\u00a0 Again, I was challenged\u2026have I shown gratitude to those around me?<\/p>\n<p>As of late I have been thinking about how to do a better job of expressing my thanks to people.\u00a0 I am going to challenge myself and in turn would love to challenge our community to be more thankful.\u00a0 Not because of a time of year, not just because it\u2019s polite, but because it is important.\u00a0 Here are some ideas I am going to try out to convey my appreciation to people.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Send a hand written thank you to someone (snail mail or campus mail).<\/b>\u00a0 I know\u2026so old school.\u00a0 There is something very charming and honest about something you take the time to write out by hand.\u00a0 I am not saying it needs to be sealed with a wax stamp, but that could be <i>really<\/i> cool.<\/li>\n<li><b>Bake\/buy someone their favorite baked good.<\/b>\u00a0 I am not terribly bake savvy so I would be in the \u201cbuy\u201d camp on this one.\u00a0 This gesture could convey 1) some knowledge of the person and their likes and 2) caring effort to make\/get something for them without them asking for it.<\/li>\n<li><b>Call someone and tell them 3 reasons you are thankful for them.\u00a0 <\/b>Texting is great, okay?\u00a0 I am pro texting except when driving or in certain meetings.\u00a0 However, often it is hard to decipher tone or sentiment while reading a text.\u00a0 Call them, tell them why they are awesome.<\/li>\n<li><b>Make eye contact with a server and thank them.<\/b>\u00a0 In the hustle and bustle of life, we sometimes forget to properly acknowledge people.\u00a0 The people who prepare coffee or food for you are really important people.\u00a0 They provide a vital service.\u00a0 Thus, they deserve to be given genuine thanks.\u00a0 That includes the non-verbal piece of thanks.<\/li>\n<li><b>Give someone a hug\/handshake\/high five.<\/b>\u00a0 Just more examples of non-verbal elements of showing gratitude.\u00a0 These physical gestures are simple ways of saying thank you.\u00a0 Make sure you know peoples comfort levels before choosing which one you give.<\/li>\n<li><b>Spend some time with someone (get coffee\/tea\/a meal\/run an errand, etc.).<\/b>\u00a0 Quality time with someone is really valuable.\u00a0 It can convey care and a willingness to sacrifice our ever-important time for the sake of showing our appreciation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Feel free to adapt any of these ideas or suggest your ideas in the comments section.<\/p>\n<p>I know these are bold steps but give it a try.\u00a0 Even if it is just one, give it a whirl.\u00a0 Aesop said \u201cGratitude is the sign of noble souls.\u201d\u00a0 Let us be a community full of daring and noble people who know how to be thankful.\u00a0 One that is conscious of how fortunate we are, and one that is wise enough to acknowledge the people that make it so.<\/p>\n<p>THANK YOU for reading this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Tyler Pau, Assistant Director of Residence Life Leaves are changing color\u2026they are also falling pretty quick.\u00a0 It\u2019s getting consistently cooler, and we just did the big daylight savings clock adjustment.\u00a0 We are deep into autumn, my friends.\u00a0 Halloween is &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/reslife\/2013\/11\/09\/gratitude-giving-thanks-and-showing-appreciation\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":254,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-5","category-staff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/reslife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/reslife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/reslife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/reslife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/reslife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/reslife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":382,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/reslife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions\/382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/reslife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/reslife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/reslife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}