While the soul is free from appreciation or criticism, it is the mortal being in each one of us that craves
for appreciation, that too external. Abraham Maslow in his theory of hierarchy
of needs in motivation places ‘Recognition’ in the middle, just before Self
esteem. Indeed recognition and appreciation do give a boost to self
esteem. That’s also where we talk of the power of positive words as they can
make or break a person.
Having said, the fact is that
forget appreciation, many a times there is no acknowledgement also because we
get so used to taking people and things for granted and everything starts
becoming just another piece of responsibility, be it at work or home. A friend
recently shared that when she said “thank you Laxmi! Thank you for coming at 6
in the morning and cooking for us, my son (a special child) makes it to school
on time with his 2 tiffins only because of you” to her cook, Laxmi was so elated
and then her commitment levels increased like never before.
While Laxmi got her due credit, what about us? Are we
somewhere taking ourselves for granted too? Do we recognize our own self worth?
Do we ever sit to think about what all good we do?; we handle a multitude of
responsibilities and take so much in our stride, at times emerge with a new learning...
Don’t we have a responsibility towards our own selves?
After all if you want to keep other happy, keep yourself happy first. If the
self is not happy and empowered, it can never spread happiness and positivity
and everything will appear as a drudgery or mere responsibility.
As we move toward the New Year let’s sit back and
recall the good things we did, appreciate ourselves and approach the New Year
with a sense of delight . This will not
just make us happy, it will also inspire us to continue doing good with a sense
of inner joy.
