There’s never a wrong time for a heartfelt compliment.
18 year old Shea Glover, then a student at the Chicago HS for the Arts conducted an experiment. She told people around campus that she was taking photos of “things she finds beautiful”. What she did instead, however is film their reactions to that sentence.
It’s quite interesting what happens. Some of the people (who are mostly in their teens, it seems) absolutely light up and show an authentic smile, others are shocked and get shy, some few even get aggressive, although they might just be teasing Shea. Have a look at the video:
The reactions in the video are fascinating, but so are the comments on Youtube. Many users explain that having just received a heartfelt compliment like that once would have changed them completely.
“I just realised that nobody ever called me beautiful and if someone would do that some years ago I could be another person today”
Especially during that phase growing up, many people have a hard time accepting themselves the way they are, or always feel they have to some other way. It can be really comforting to just hear something nice during that time.
“This is so sweet!!! I cried watching some of the reactions…what if hearing this that day stopped them from harming themselves because they felt different and gave them hope where there was none? If only ALL of our younger generation could do this instead of bully and tease! EVERYONE has something beautiful about them…everyone has worth and value!”
Beauty is everywhere and that is something we should be more conscious of and pay more attention to. Think for yourselves, see for yourselves, experience for yourselves. Look around you, and if you can’t see it, practice seeing it. This process can be similar to practicing gratitude.
Sometimes it feels like everything is going the wrong way, but if you take a step back and consciously try to find things in your life to appreciate, you’ll see that you’re choosing to ignore much good. You can be grateful for people you know, choices presented, living someplace nice, or just the small things like a beautiful day, or arriving at home just when it starts raining. There are a few methods to rewire your thinking and among the most popular is keeping a gratitude Journal. If that doesn’t work, there are alternatives. Keeping gratitude journals, or practicing a similar rituals, has been shown to increase happiness and productivity. You can be grateful for so many things, just as you can find so much beauty around you, if you look. If the beautiful things around you have the potential to understand you, tell them what you see!