Today my act of kindness at work was to compliment someone’s sweater, it was really quite beautiful. But it felt insignificant. Don’t worry, all my posts on this won’t be diminishing my own acts of kindness.
Tonight I’ve been reading blogs and watching more TED talks and Heather posted this link to facebook. Maiija writes about being inspired by her lunch with Jen and Heather. About how connected she felt with her friends & colleagues and how inspiring that was. That got me thinking about my own writing. “Just start writing” and “she writes beautifully everyday” are quotes that are ringing in my ears.
I started thinking about how hard it was for me to start writing this blog. How I resisted for years. Even though I always wanted to write. I never, ever thought I was good enough. I also never really tried, or worked that hard at it. Hmmm.
My mind collects and connects many seemingly disparate ideas which I often have a hard time expressing in a concise way. I’ve also been thinking about how some of my students just expect to be good at things and give up when something is hard. Which makes me think of the book I’m listening to about how general praise like “Good Job” and “You’re smart”, are actually making children less confident and less likely to be willing to fail and keep working on something.
WTF? You think. There is a connection here, truly.
So, I think to myself, what would help me with my confidence with writing? Specific praise. If someone sent me a twitter message, or wrote a comment on the blog or facebook, or called me to say “hey, that was really interesting, I liked ….,” or “your post about …. was really well written, I especially liked…..”
And of course, this has happened. The urbanmoms community is so supportive. There are also some members of Multiple Births Canada who have been very supportive both here and on facebook. And friends. After a book club meeting one of the women in the group, whom I don’t know very well, told me that she thinks my ideas about education are refreshing. What a wonderful thing to say. Thank you!
What is my point and what have I learned?
- I should pay close attention to what people write or say to me about my writing or my views. I should accept it at face value and be thankful.
- Pay it forward. I need to comment more on other blogs and give specific praise, not just add my own opinion to the discussion. I do think that adding one’s opinion is an integral part of the exchange, but, so should the complimenting and I haven’t been that great at it.
So my act of kindness tonight will be to write a comment on a blog post that offers specific praise and appreciation to the author.
Wow Zoie,
Number 50, that’s amazing. I adore comment love too and I try to comment regularly, but I find it difficult. I’m not sure I could do 50. Thank you for commenting here.
I’m afraid to say, I’ve slacked of in the Random Acts of Kindness, I will be refocussing again now.
Yup, that’s what this is. Number 50 something comment post for participants in MOK. I’m attempting to make each one specific by really reading and commenting non-generically. So, it is quite an undertaking.
I don’t know about you, but I adore comment love. I think it’s worth it to take this time. Some of the blogs are “small” and have next to no comments on any of the posts. Some are “big” blogs that have multiple comments. What I’ve found is that “big” or “small,” there are some great writers out there and it doesn’t mean the great writers are also the “big” ones.
So, my Google Reader is now chocablock with reading that keeps me up past midnight. But, it’s good stuff. How can I resist?
Happy MOKing!
I like this idea. There are days when I think ‘why do I blog’ ‘i must be boring the crap out of people’ and then I get ONE comment that says how much the person loves it etc and it will inspire me for weeks. I left a quasi ‘negative’ comment on someones blog last week – she is another single mother who I think is amazing but always seems to add digs in at her ex in her blog (deservedly). I told her to start praising herself and give the guy less air time….but I’ve felt like crap about it ever since. So maybe today I’ll go back and leave her another more glowing one!
Oh my gosh – I am SO bad at commenting. I definitely want to have a day of commenting (other than CarNatPar, of course) as one of my days this month. I love your idea of focusing on praise. I just had someone email me with a warm compliment about Code Name: Mama, and it made my night! Great idea Erin 🙂
What a beautiful idea. Most blog praise comes from spam bots looking to get a link published, but real actual praise from another blogger seems to be far and few between.