I received a great email today from a friend who attends StoneRidge, thanking me for keeping something he’s majorly involved in updated on our website.
I drafted up a response, and then re-read my completed message. I had begun my email with, Thanks very much for the compliments, and for some reason I decided to change the word compliments to comments. As I was making the change, I realized it was a simple matter of removing three letters; P-L-I.
Yeah, that seemed better. But then I thought, even though I know what these two words mean, how closely are they related, really? And maybe I need a dictionary refresher to make sure I’m not replying with a backhanded compliment/comment.
Compliments are expressions of praise, commendation or admiration, or respect.
Comments could be remarks, observations, criticisms or even gossip.
The word criticism jumped out at me. I know this guy wasn’t criticizing me! So, I quickly put those three little letters back in the message and sent it off.
I get comments all the time. Sometimes I’m even the guy handing out the comments. And it seems everybody has an opinion, and there are lots of people out there willing to freely give it, even when most times people aren’t asking for it.
There are plenty of comments permeating our ears these days.
But the compliments… uh… yeah.
Different story.
The compliments seem to be lacking these days… everywhere you go.
How many times did you hear the following (or something similar) growing up (or how many times have you said it to your own kids):
What do you say to the nice lady…?
Why do we have such a hard time simply saying ‘thanks’?
We usually mean well. It’s in us — deep down there somewhere — to give out the compliments. Unfortunately it’s more natural and instinctive (and it’s faster) to react and speak from the mind than the heart, and to dole out the oft-inappropriate comments.
Time for a change.
I generally pick up on this after my mouth has opened, so I’ll have to get intentional about this. From now on, for me, I want it to be, “Appreciate people’s comments, but start dishing out the compliments!”
We’ll see how it goes.