Have you thought about praising others? Lots of books have been written in order to make our words convincing, among which we learnt that Carnegie has suggested we praise others sincerely and we also find that in one of the themes in the bestseller book of the Korean female writer RenShu Nan, whereupon after understanding the general idea we always see the following responses conducted by the side effects of improper compliments:

Case 1:

Employee: “How’s the work I’ve done this week? Is there anything needs to be fixed?”

Supervisor: “you did a great job! Wonderful! Excellent!

Employee:……Was I like that? Or he just brushed me off?

Case2:

Kid:” mum, is my drawing good?”

Mum: “what a great artist you are!”

Kid:…oh I’m not as great as mum said. Peter (another kid) can do much better than me!

Case 3:

Girl: “Do you like the birthday present? I looked for a long time.”

Boy:”oh yes, it’s the best ever!”

Girl:… It must not be the best ever present for him. He said it just because I told him I looked for a long time.

No wonder people say words fail and silence is the gold. We don’t fit in exactly with one’s wishes and those compliments are basically useless!

The words from a 17 yr old Chinese-German boy named Andrew enlightened me concerning of this question. By the time he merely started to try to write a column with his mum, a Taiwan writer YingTai Long who had been out of his life for more than four years.

 Care for me, understand me, but do not judge me.

I think that to a large extent it is the evaluating compliment makes one stressful. They don’t know what to do with the “identity” given by others. Am I great? Can I be as good as he said? We doubt ourselves. We can’t read others’ minds so that we can’t figure out whether it’s true or not.

Given this situation I think to describe what they’ve done and to list a few facts of their achievements make a big difference. Take the three cases above for example:

Case 1:

Employ: “How’s the work I’ve done this week? Is there anything needs to be fixed?”

Supervisor: “the chart makes a lot easier for me to get our monthly results. You also analised the reasons for the boost in sales. I appreciate the work you’ve done.”

Case 2:

Kid:” mum, is my drawing good?”

Mum: “The bright sky and the green grass makes a perfect match. You also put a house and a happy dog there! He even wags his tail!”

Case 3:

 Girl: “Do you like the birthday present? I looked for a long time.”

Boy: “I do. You know my favourite is electronic product and I find the colour favorable. Most importantly I see you’ve been planning this for a while that you even didn’t buy yourself anything the whole month!”

How do they sound now? :)

Melissa, dealing with youth everyday so that needing to take words seriously and carefully.

P.S. A short message for those who’ve given wishes to me. Sorry for not replying to give thanks in many details but what I mean thank you is a real one indeed. Those wishes you put on my blog say themselves!