Furrowed somewhere at the back of our minds we have a catalog of the things people have said to us. Beautiful and horrible things. And also magnificent truckloads of nonsense like, Hey, have you seen my Bieber tshirt?
Most of that nonsense passes out of the system, but the other stuff – the compliments and curses – remains, becoming the furniture of our thoughts. These words are powerful. They can break hearts and mend hearts. They can make us bubble like champagne or go flat as a can of coke.
It’s easier to remember the hard words than the sweet ones. Criticism is more memorable, by far, than compliments. Compliments are like wedding albums – beautiful, but mostly left on the shelf.
But there are exceptions – and these exceptions are worth holding onto for dear life. The other day I remembered something someone told me long ago. They said, You know Matt, you reflect people their beauty…
Come again?
The person who said this was only a friendly acquaintance, and he said it so matter of factly, as if he were commenting on the weather.
No, I did not know that. Or if I did, I could not have put into those words. Whatever I replied I’ve long forgotten. I probably blustered on with the conversation, but to this day it remains one of the best compliments I’ve ever received. Not because it was lofty, but because it was revealing. It exposed a truth I did not know was there. It threw back a curtain. It cracked a hidden door.
Our highest compliments are like this — they’re not merely nice words, pats on the back; they’re intimations, intuitions, revelations. They’re blessings.
If compliments are the pretty leaves that dance for a while before they fall off the tree, blessings are like taproots — they cling to the heart of who we are. Season after season they spur us on, they challenge us to see the truth in ourselves, and live up to it.
These glimmers are everywhere. They’re not necessarily delivered by experts, or mined from the pages of wise books. Wisdom wears many faces. Often these faces and voices are much closer than we think. In unassuming ways, he hear them spoken from neighbors and children and random strangers from the bar.
We should listen in.
For a long time I assumed personal development meant striving forward at all costs – stretching my personality in new directions – leaving my old self behind. These days I realize it means going back too. It means remembering, recovering, renewing the good that was there from the start, and bringing it to life again.
show & tell 