Year ending muse!

What is the best advice your mother ever gave you?

I was about 10. My mom had just finished creating one of her amazing meals and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Delicious.

Later as I was washing the dishes, my mom came up to me. "Sorry, dinner was so awful again", she said.

I was shocked. "What? No, it was so great. I loved it".

"Really?" she said, with mock surprise. "You always eat so quietly, never saying anything. You've never told me you liked my cooking, so I thought you hated it".

"No, you're the best cook I know".

"Then you should tell me that", she said.

"Whenever someone does something nice for you, you should thank that person. If you don't, then she might think she's not appreciated and stop doing those nice things".

Something clicked right then.

From that day onward, I thanked everyone for literally everything.

If anyone did something that even vaguely helped me, I thanked that person profusely.

It became a habit, something I didn't even think about and that's when the magic started happening.

People liked me more. They talked to me more, shared with me, were more friendly.

In my first year of high school, during the final week, I came home and found a giant freezie (a kind of sweet frozen snack) waiting for me. "Thanks, mom!" I said instinctively. 

"This isn't from me, she said. "This is from your bus driver". He had been driving that bus for years and my siblings and I were the first people to ever thank him as we got dropped off.

Those two simple words made a huge difference, so much so that he went out of his way to tell our mom and give us a present.

My mom taught me many things but taking two seconds to say 'thank you' every time, in any situation, was the best.

Debriefing of this story

You would have met people who all themselves as good critics but have you ever met a person who says I am good at appreciating others?

Isn't that a something we an improve upon in our society?

Let's start appreciating people more frequently starting from people more frequently starting from people who are close to us.

"The sweetest of all sounds is praise".

Tailpiece.

Got up at 6, opened up the house, put on the music. Went about our chores and was ready by 9. Had breakfast and finished our packing. 

We were off to Pidavoor, had a quick lunch and set off for Ayathil. We, first, dropped at Karthika's house, spent about half an hour and then went to Aarcha's house to look up Lekha's sister, Letha who has had her little toe of her left foot removed, being diabetis.

We reached Sanil's house at Ayur by a quarter to 5. It was a great evening as we bonded after a long time. The missing members of our group were Achu and Karthika.