The Power of Thank You!

When we are little we are always taught to say “please” and “thank you” for politeness sake.  It is a good thing to learn, and I think we should take it a step further.

Quite a long time ago, I was standing in a very long line, and there was a great deal of rudeness going on. I felt that I was just as rude as anyone else in the line.  I have never done well in lines, and that part of life still hasn’t changed much.  However, I could see the cashier becoming more discouraged and pity conquered my rude thoughts.  When she was through checking me out, I told her thank you for her patience with the long line and all of us. Her whole face changed in a flash from discouragement to cheer.  Her eyes changed, and it struck me with great force, the power behind a true thank you.

Since then, I have tried to do that as often as I can.  I will make a point to search someone out to say thank you and then specifically tell them what I am grateful for.  We know that an attitude of gratitude is good for us, but do we realize what it does for others?

Putting the Power to Work

I was counseling a husband and wife who were on the edge of a divorce many years ago.  She was about to leave, and she could tick his faults off like an adding machine.  He had them it was true, but she could never see past them.  He wasn’t abusive, he was just irritating.  He was a good provider, but what he provided was never enough.  She was just flat dissatisfied.  At the end of the session I commented that it would be interesting to know if there was anything that she was grateful about towards him and whether she ever told him. I asked her to just give it a thought before she made her decision final.

When she returned the following week I saw a very different woman.  She had gone home and she had a major “think” about her husband.  She could see many things that he did and had done through the years that she was grateful for.  One night, she leaned over and told him that she had appreciated all that he had done and even named some of them off.  He broke down and just sobbed.  She ended up comforting him and heard him say,  “I didn’t think anything I did meant anything to you!”

She realized that she had continuously been raising the bar on how far he had to jump to make her happy.  He never stood a chance. She ended up apologizing to him for not telling him thank you enough.  In fact, she couldn’t even remember saying it once.  As she re-looked at the man she had such disdain for, suddenly, with bringing in the power of the “thank you,” she saw the man.

Sometimes I think there is a power in words that we don’t understand.  We know that there is a power in hateful words, because they create hurt.  They depress minds and can change the chemistry in our bodies.  If that is the case, then the opposite for good words must apply.

The Unspoken Thank You

Let’s change our way of thinking and behaving and use the power of the words “thank you.”  When my son Trenton was born, we were waiting to hear whether the genetic test the hospital had run on him would be positive for Down syndrome.  It seemed to take forever to hear the results.  When they came back positive, I can remember going back into his crib and picking him up. I just looked at him wondering how we were going to deal with all of this.  He opened his eyes, and we just looked at each other for a bit.  Then suddenly I began to cry and tell him how grateful I was for him and how grateful I was that he had chosen our home to come to. I then told him, “Thank you. Thank you for being with me!”

For just a moment, his eyes changed from a baby set of eyes to deep, knowing eyes.  A tear formed in his eyes, the kind of tears you never see from a new born.  Real tears! I heard the words “thank you for wanting me” come right back at me.  There were two words of thank you that had just been passed back and forth.  Trenton’s eyes then changed back to his baby eyes.  Those words of thank you had real impact on me.  From that time on I never asked why he was the way he was.  I was just grateful he was with me.

Let us fill our homes with the word thank you.  Let us fill our towns and our schools with those same words.  What can it possibly hurt? It might just lift up a day for someone else.  It will change our mood and every one else’s around us.  It has to be real, or the power won’t be there.  With that thought I think I will say thank you to you out there that read this. Thank you for allowing me to share with you!