My Compliments

From the time we are small children, we are taught how to act and react around others.  We are taught to be polite and consider other peoples' feelings.  We are taught to use proper manners—well, most of us are taught—and say all those lovely "Yes, ma'ams" and "No, sirs."

And all of these lessons are fairly straightforward.  But, unfortunately, not all our life lessons will prove to be so clear and easily understood.

While we are learning our manners as children, the adults in our lives continually stress the importance of saying "thank you."  We are taught to say our thanks to people who serve us at restaurants, the people who carry our groceries to our cars, the people who help us find those an item we can't locate at the store, the telephone customer service reps employed by every company with which we do business.  We give a quick wave and a smile of appreciation to people who give us a spot to cut out into traffic on a busy street.  We say thank yous to people who hold open doors for us to pass through.

We are also taught to say "thank you" when people pay us compliments.  And while our parents and teachers are teaching us to thank those who compliment us, they are simultaneously teaching us to be humble and not to brag.

Then we hit.....the teen years.  And we change forever.  All of a sudden, we become acutely aware of our own flaws.  Our self-confidence plummets to extreme lows, and we even begin to imagine non-existent imperfections and greatly magnify minor ones.  It's a terrible thing that we, as teenagers, do to ourselves.

As adults, we begin to recover from this low period, but it will forever leave its mark on our lives and on the way we react to compliments.

It can be hard to learn to humbly and gracefully take a compliment.  Even the most genuine of compliments can instantly send us into a fit of inner turmoil.  You want to let yourself feel good, knowing that someone thinks enough of you to pay the compliment in the first place.  But, while you want to feel good, you don't want to appear too proud or conceited.  And while all of that is rolling around in our minds, the little bits of leftover teen insecurities are telling us that we don't deserve the compliment in the first place, that we aren't worthy and aren't good enough.  The craziest part of all is that all of this happens in only a moment, and the result is usually that we end up spewing out some awkward, stuttering word of thanks without trying to sound at all awkward or like a stuttering fool.

So what is the solution?

I only know of one: We have to grow up.  We have to work to shed those past insecurities, accept that we are sometimes worthy of praise, and learn to express our thanks honestly and with grace.  And then.....we have to try and teach this to our own children.