Whom Did You Compliment Today?

Source: Write Tribe

Do you love it when someone praises your work or you are suffering from an exceptionally bad day and suddenly someone, unexpectedly, compliments you? Does it bring a smile on your lips? Of course it does! I love compliments, in fact I’m a sucker for praises and flattery. If the compliment comes truly from the heart, then there’s nothing more valued for me. I guess it’s in human nature to feel happy when we are appreciated. And this tendency does start from a very young age. My 2 year old daughter feels so delighted when I clap and “ooh-and-aah” her doodles on paper. It encourages her to write and learn more. Children at a very tender age crave for appreciation and praises from their parents in everything they do. It spurs their creativity and builds their confidence. 

I know this from my own experience!

My love for writing and reading developed at a very young age. Although I dabbled in writing when I was in early teens, I never took it up seriously due to lack of guidance and encouragement. But when I was in 12^th grade, an incident built the confidence within me and created a hope that with loads of practice and proper guidance, I can, one day, become a good writer.

My mid-term exams were underway and I was writing my English language papers. I had finished all the questions except one. Now our lecturer for English language, Mr. Rajesh Prabhu, was not a man who believed in the conventional way of teaching. His classes were the most entertaining one for us and it was like a breather compared to the other boring and tedious subjects.

So I was not completely surprised when I saw a short scenario given in broken sentences that had to be composed into a full-length story. The scenario given was that a young woman, standing in front of a movie theater, is desperate to find a ticket for a movie that she’s dying to watch but unfortunately all the tickets are sold out. She then targets a young boy and tricks him, using her good looks, to hand over his tickets to him.

With plenty of time on my hands, I put my creativity to good use and fleshed out a story, adding succulent details on how the young woman lured the boy in her bait. Honestly I never expected Prabhu Sir to read all the stories from his students. Secure in this knowledge, I kept adding juicy details to my story and making use of my amateurish storytelling skills.

So imagine my horror, when after distributing all the papers, Prabhu Sir decided to retain my paper with him and announced in front of the entire class that he was quite impressed by the story of one his students. My heart raced rapidly as he started reading out my story in front of all the boys and girls. The racy and saucy parts of my story went down very well with the boys, I must say. And when he announced the person who had written the story, quite a few people had their mouths open in surprise.

To add to my embarrassment, he made me stand up and praised my imagination and my writing skills. I was pleased but felt uncomfortable being the focus of the entire class. In that moment, Prabhu Sir transformed me from the shy, reticent girl to the girl who had written that wonderful story. He gave me hopes, he instilled confidence within me that I had the ability to spin tales. He encouraged me and gave wings to my dreams. That’s the power of a few words of compliments.

I am thankful to Prabhu Sir for recognizing the talent in me and appreciating it when I needed it the most. 

This National Compliment Day(celebrated on January 24), I urge you to open your heart and compliment and appreciate the people around you. Believe me, the feeling you receive when you give is liberating and one-of-a-kind.

So, all you amazing and wonderful people, thank you for reading and share the love on your blogs too.

This post is written for Write Tribe's National Compliment Day Feature