Robin SmithMother's Day, Father's Day, Veterans Day, Flag Day, National Popcorn, Hot Dog and Dental Flossing days are among the many hundreds of days designated as commemorative on our annual calendar. While so many holidays and days of recognition serve their purposes to honor folks on special days, some of these are nothing but marketing moments that fit perfectly in our culture of excessive retailing, #hashtag hysteria and esteeming that of superficial value.
The more you interact with the public, the more times you engage with your neighbors and community at large, and the more you operate in business with various personalities, forces of nature and variables of life, the more you appreciate the average person. The men or women who do their job, who are reliable, who are trustworthy and sure.
So, this day's for you, lady or gentleman, who serves as the mortar holding our society together each day, with no trophies, no special day and usually very few gestures of thanks.
For those who rise daily for work, trudge through traffic and arrive on time, thank you. For the moms and dads who leave the last pieces of bread for the lunch sandwich for your slumbering teen on summer vacation, yeah, that gets a pat on the back, too.
For those who work with a public that demands more and more but has diminished appreciation for your work, don't be discouraged. You are noticed and appreciated by many more than you know for your smile, your important but overlooked service, and your getting the job done.
Working with so many different teams in business, politics and other sectors of life, I've learned that praise and feedback provide fuel for folks whose engines run dry in thankless positions and stressful roles. No, gratuitous, empty flattering doesn't work. But a genuine smile, a nod of affirmation or a quick "thank you" are the awards each of us can bestow as acknowledgements of gratitude for a job well-done or of recognition for an individual who is more than a robotic figure or offers more than minimal service.
Yes, we live in a time of conflict, a time of political divisiveness and self-centeredness. But, to avoid becoming personally jaded and joining the chorus of the unhappy, we can choose otherwise. It takes effort to be the dependable one who makes the coffee at work before others arrive. It's a choice to feel the lack of appreciation by many in their rush and distraction and still decide to excel.
Even St. Luke, the doctor of the Gospels, captured the miracle of Christ healing 10 lepers to reflect the lack of gratitude. Speaking to the unclean, diseased men, Jesus' words were obeyed by all, with only one of the 10 seeing and appreciating his miracle. The one leper returned to Christ to thank and glorify him.
Be that 10 percenter. Decide to be the one who chooses to see the good people, the good service and the good acts, and to respond not with faint praise but in authentic appreciation.
In 1985, the author of "Roots," Alex Haley, was the commencement speaker at the University of Tennessee, my graduating class (#GBO, #VFL). He said then in Stokely Athletic Center, and Sen. Lamar Alexander has reminded us for years of this Tennessean's admonition, to "find the good and praise it."
Sure, some will see this as Pollyannish and chortle. Yet, the discipline of gratitude is truly a deliberate practice. It requires working to find the best in a situation, acknowledging the virtue and being thankful. Gratitude lived is an art of grace.
So, thank you, average person!
Robin Smith, a former Tennessee Republican Party chairwoman, owns Rivers Edge Alliance.