"You did an excellent job of chewing and swallowing your food today!" You probably have not heard this particular bit of praise. But it exemplifies a very real category of compliments.
Here's the situation: Someone sees you. He also wants to give you some form of encouragement. So he tries to come up with something good you did, or some good quality you possess. He searches and searches for what might very well be an eternity. (After all, how often do you do something well?)
Then he remembers! Earlier in the day he saw you eating something. Maybe it was a banana, maybe an orange. The point is, it was something. And you managed to bite it, chew it up into pieces, and swallow without causing any harm to yourself or anyone around you. Aha! An accomplishment! A very minor one, but an accomplishment none the less. And so he proudly praises you for the wonderful job of chewing and swallowing that you so masterfully performed earlier in the day.
Now how do you feel upon receiving such a compliment? You might at first feel good about yourself. Yes, I did eat that banana, didn't I? But then after the comment sets in, you slowly come to realize what little value it holds. However, it's meaning can be piercing.
Not to worry. This is just an exaggeration. But it allowed me to get out some frustration I have in another situation. And it was fun to rant.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
I completely understand.
My freshman year of college a friend and I had to give a presentation and we totally tanked. Couldn't remember what we were going to say, what our point was, I know that at least I was shaking very badly.
Afterwards several well meaning classmates stopped us to compliment us on...you know...breathing or something. We could, after all, have passed out while we were giving the speech and it would have been a tragedy for people to miss our lovely symphony of "Uh...um...well"
Orginally we'd only wanted to go back to the dorm and hide under the covers - but after they were done "complimenting" us we were quite certain that only instantanious death would make us feel better.
Another reason to be anti-social. :-D
On a lighter note:
I just got back from the periodontist for a follow-up appointment. (I had some work done last month... hence the black eye.) He said something like, "You're a great healer!"
Last year, I was a substitute teacher. I semi-frequently subbed for Special Ed. That was really hard for me, harder than I can put into words. At one school, we had a little boy who we really did compliment, "You did such a good job chewing your food! Now swallow it!"
We may have meant the compliment sincerely, but your post made me think: what kind of a compliment is that anyway? I don't know if it's better or worse that that particular child didn't understand us anyway.
With a compliment as meaningless as that, would it be better to not say anything? Or is it better to give out a sincere but meaningless compliment?
I think in general, the heart of the compliment (especially spur of the moment) is bigger than any words we might conjur up.
Post a Comment