Look with all your eyes

Lately I have met a person. Haven’t seen her for ages. I looked at her. As she was wearing mask. These were only her eyes that talked. That was an extraordinary moment. I was stunned by how much you can read in those eyes. I have always been looking into people’s eyes. Now, looking into eyes has even more meaning. I felt grateful that we met. That we connected. I shared that with her.

There are moments that we have the thought that somebody is important to us, that we admire somebody or we realize we are learning from somebody. The question is how many times it stays only with us. It remains unspoken. How often does it happen to you?

Things are changing, but one need remains the same. We all need to hear positive things about ourselves, we need to be noticed and cared for. And perhaps in challenging times it is even more important to cultivate gratitude. To share positive feedback, express appreciation and recognize achievements, no matter how small. We never know what it could mean to somebody else. Actually, there are no little things. The little things are not little. Sometimes, it’s the little moments that matter most. Recognizing them we get stronger. And communicating them to others, we say that they bring concrete value to our world, that they have impact on us, on our thinking and feeling. It is a powerful message to others. Isn’t every moment we withhold the positives a wasted chance?

Why would not we express gratitude? Expressing gratitude requires courage because we need to be vulnerable and open up. That’s not easy. Some might find it awkward or struggle to find the right words. Also we are in constant rush, so many things are calling for our focus that we might simply put those little (big) thanks aside, thinking we will do it someday. Besides that, we have different assumptions that keep us silent. We might assume that something doesn’t matter or we wait for extraordinary moments to speak up. We don't want to get too excited because there's still so much work to be done. And we miss the moments on the way. We might also believe that people know that we are grateful to them. The truth is that people don’t have the capacity to read in our minds. And even though they know it doesn’t mean they wouldn’t like to hear that.

We can get better in expressing gratitude by practicing it in both personal and professional lives intentionally. Gratitude is a muscle, when you train it, it will get stronger. So will you. If you think there is nothing to be grateful for, perhaps this is a signal to look more carefully. Keep eyes wide open. “Look with all your eyes, look”, as Julius Verne put it. Maybe it is about progress? Maybe you learnt from somebody something today? Maybe somebody made your day? Maybe if somebody hadn’t supported you today, you wouldn’t have managed to make a progress today? Don’t withhold and contain it. Just speak up. 

With gratitude we grow. With gratitude we invest in our well-being, we build our resilience and capacity to deal with stress and tension. In the world where you can be anything, be grateful. To yourself and to others. All win. Everything we need is to look.

So, what are you grateful for?