The Little Tiny Beautiful Things: The Secret Power of a “Thank You”

Originally written on August 28, 2018
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Texto Original en español :
https://agradeceresgratis.blogspot.com/2018/08/el-secreto-poder-de-la-gratitud-y-el.html

This translation was done after a Trip to Europe, where I gave many Gratitude Cards to a lot of people that didn’t speak Spanish

(First of all: thanks for wanting to read me!)

This is a special Gratitude Card that I left in the Safestay Passage de Gràcia Hostel in Barcelona. I googled ways to write thank you and just as everything happens with this project people who could write the ones I couldn’t appeared on my way and did it themselves (so there is Japanese writing and Arabic there that was written not by me )

So, Thank-You: Two syllables, 8 letters and an enormous super-power.

Since the beginning of our lives we’ve been taught to say those words. Of the polite words group ;of the so called “magic words”.

But, how magic can words get to be?

When we were kids, please and thank you where the ruling magic words, because when we used them, just like with magic, doors opened, locks were unlocked, and they gave us access to sweet things to eat, they helped us achieve childhood desires, they would open up the possibility to go to our friends’ house...they would, in the end, help us get something.

Nowadays, all grown up, those magic words, for most of us, come out spontaneously and are a reflection of politeness more than anything else. They have lost a little bit their magic cause we’ve worn it down. We got so used to using them as a way of keeping our class that we have let that magic, that we once saw as kids, just get away.

Again, when we were kids, the effect of the magic words was conditioned by our parents. They would teach us how and when to use them and how they worked; and it was them who decided how that magic would manifest itself (just as in the examples in the paragraph above). It was in our parents power, so to say, to make that magic work.

Today, at my 27 years old, with the please and the thank you, along with their friends excuse me and sorry, pretty well written into my vocabulary, I realized the magic behind a thank you, in particular, was way more powerful than than of those other words. And the thing is that when you say please or excuse me, you are trying to get something (a thing, space, consideration, etc) or a sorry that is a way of emendment, a THANK YOU is not conditioned by anything but one. It is true that you have to have something to be thankful for, and that is the only condition behind how being grateful works. But if you think about it, there are SO many things you can be thankful for, that really there’s nothing to condition being grateful. You can thank now, for example, for being able to see, being able to read this, just as few examples.

So, that’s how I realized what summing it up, is the Gratuity of Gratitude (in Spanish la GRATUIDAD de la Gratitud), meaning the free nature of gratitude; cause it doesn’t requiere nor asks for anything in return. And that freeness of gratitude is what makes it able for us to play with the magic of words and its effect on others.

This magical game, which is the exercise of gratitude, turns, if we handle it the right way, into an extremely easy to use, and incredibly powerful super power.

Because we all know how good it feels to hear a thank you when we feel like we’ve worked for something or when we’ve done something with love. We all know how it feels when, on the other side, we are not thanked when we should have been. You, reading this and me, we’ve both experienced what gratitude makes us feel: that warm fuzzy feeling we feel when we feel useful, when we feel like what we do matters. And with that feeling, comes something that it’s been biologically proven to make us happier: a SMILE.

That’s when I realized, now more than a year ago, that both things came together. Being polite and a smile. A thank you, and a smile; an honest ‘I’m sorry’ in the middle of a crowd and a smile. All those little gestures, were little doses of happiness we could be missing out. And it was while realizing that, that I decided to establish what is today my @ProyectoGratitud.

And what is @ProyectoGratitud all about? It is simply about being more thankful but going a little bit further than just saying that thanks that often comes as a reflex and has lost its magic; to turn it into something tangible, into something concrete, into what I’ve defined as a “automatic smile maker”: my gratitude cards, that just as you see in the picture, are nothing more than hand written thank you’s to regular people.

My Project has not only made me more grateful, but has also made me much more aware of the people around me, and it is something so so soooo easy to do. And that's the point and that is why I encourage you to also pass the gratitude along this way.

Because as I said, my gratitude cards have made me look for things to be thankful for. And I’ve found so many things, so many people that maybe before I didn’t acknowledge, that now I’ve made part of this magical thing, and it’s been a gift, for both parts.

Cause it’s a win win. It is amazing to see people’s reaction when you give one. And it’s such a different and special kind of happiness what you are left with after you give them away... it just makes it so easier to actually WANT to do this...

So this blog entry is the translation of the original one in Spanish, but comes after arriving from a Euro Trip where I couldn’t have felt more blessed. I often wonder why God is so good to me. Because if you know me, you would know that I go through a lot of things that I think are not that “normal”. I got a lot of anecdotes and stories that are storybook worthy (and will someday be in a book) and just as I feel I have “too much”, I feel this is a way of giving back just a little.

I now have given more than 200 gratitude cards, in different languages, to different kind of people. From the bus driver who takes me to work, to the street musician who will lighten up my metro trip; to the lady that told me her life story just because I gave her the time, or the guard at the museum that helped me while keeping a friendly smile; to the hostal where I met and made many friends, or the restaurant where the food was reaaally good. The people or circumstances in which to be thankful are endless.

Now you know how it works, where this idea came from , and so I invite you to be a part of it. You don’t have to buy cards like I do. It is enough to write on any piece of paper. A note, a post it, even the check or a napkin/serviette would work (there are actual examples of these kind of acts that have gone viral because of their effect on, for example, waiters, now that I recall).

And the reason it works doesn't have to do with the quality of the paper used, or in how pretty the words may look; it has to do with the gesture being something unexpected. And making a thank you into something tangible as I said, is just unexpected enough.

I have to add, theres IS a reason for the size of the cards though. My idea, has always been that people who get a gratitude card, can keep them somewhere they can see it often, as a constant reminder of the importance of gratitude. So I know people who have kept it i their wallets, or on their phone case. Some Uber or Taxi drivers put them in front of them, so when the next person comes, they encounter the phrase "It's free to give thanks. Take gratitude and Pass it on" (which is on the back of every card I give). So thats one thing to consider though. Because honesty, as much as I would love for people to give cards out like I do, it's more important for me to make people conscious of the benefits of being grateful just in general. Because I do believe that a world with more gratitude, is also a more empathetic one, a more full of love one, a generally BETTER one...

So here are some examples of my cards ☺️

I want to leave you with these two videos. The first is very short exactly about the importance if being grateful. And the second one is about talking to strangers and the benefit of it. Something this project has also shown me, and gifted me with. So here they go: