Speak Easy Note #13 - On Being Thankful

Thanksgiving week has come and gone and with it came reflections on being thankful. The challenges of this past year bring a whole new perspective on feeling grateful and expressing thanks. It seems as if everyone has financial pressures and is looking at how to survive on less or on less than nothing in many cases. Yet somehow the crisis we face has brought out something quite wonderful. There is this sense of we are all in it together somehow. People seem more considerate than ever:
            
             I lost my gloves in the theater last night and a person I did not know went to great lengths to help me find them.

             I dropped my Playbill on the curb while waiting in the rain for the Number 1 bus on Fifth Avenue and a complete stranger picked it up and wiped it on his pants to dry it off and handed it to me.

             Two of my dearest friends volunteered to serve a Thanksgiving meal to the homeless at the Guthrie Center (known at one time as Alice’s Restaurant) at the Old Trinity Church in Great Barrington, MA.

It is good to be appreciative of what you have and it is good to express your thanks.

Here are relevant excerpts from SPEAK EASY, The Communication Guide for Career and Life Success, available for purchase through Word Craft Press:

A good way to manage difficult or challenging communication is to respond with a thank you:

“Thank you for telling me this; it’s important for me to know just how you are experiencing this situation.”

By thanking someone, you

> Indicate that you welcome openness

> Show that you want to increase your awareness

> Demonstrate that you value others’ viewpoints

When we choose to respond like this, it’s best to refrain from adding a disclaimer. If we say thank you to someone and then add, “But that isn’t the way I see it.”, we have erased the thank you and defeated its purpose. It’s wonderful to expand on the positive and share differing perspectives. If the purpose of the “thank you” is to acknowledge without engaging in a debate or doing battle with someone, then END your communication at the thank you, rather than expand it.

We know that over 90% of how we receive communication is non-verbal. Changing the words we use, however, still has the power to change how we feel and how others react to what we say. We will begin to see situations differently when we begin to choose different words to describe them:

“There’s only half a glass left.
“There’s still half a glass left.”

“She never calls me.”
“I’d like to talk to her more often”

“At my age, there are so few options left for me.”
“At my age, I’m so clear about which options I want to select.”

It’s true that in many instances there’s a smaller amount rather than a larger one to express in our communication. Rather than being about how full or empty the glass is, it’s about explaining what there is in the glass to drink. If there’re only three drops of water in the glass, the point is to figure out how to describe quenching your thirst with whatever amount you have. You can’t articulate how to drink the empty part so it’s unproductive to focus on it.

Until next week,
The Wordsmith