The feeling of gratitude, in every type of relationship, involves a very profound dimension of ourselves. For this reason, it is not easy to become aware of the way in which we ourselves experience gratitude and above all … the lack of this very important feeling.
The lack of gratitude, especially in the workplace, remains one of the most difficult cases to bear. The recognition of the efforts made and the investment of one’s own person and commitment to work and life are the basis of self-esteem. Recognizing the importance of others can happen in various ways … for example with:
– thanks
– a compliment
– an encouragement
– an increase
– greater autonomy space
– a more careful value to the individual responsibility
The search for gratitude is absolutely natural. An unrequited greeting in the office, when it is full of colleagues, a “thank you” not said after hours have passed on a very complex practice, the “likes” that do not arrive after a photo has been published on instagram , etc … they are small and simple things but they are those that put the doubt of pleasure not to others.
Since we were babies, we feel the need to be recognized and therefore growing up, we adopt all the tricks to be understood, distinguished and looked at as … unique.
It is inevitable to seek the pleasure of feeling important, loved and worthy of being recognized.
In the working environment, the most recent statistics show that as many as 62% of workers do not feel fully recognized in their duties: some think they are not sufficiently esteemed, they feel transparent … others even suffer real injustices.
This is the case of a working-class family man who, after a period spent at home due to a serious illness, once returned to work, even sees himself fired.
This event, although very serious and fortunately as unusual, reminds me of the fable of the donkey that fell into the well.
One day a farmer’s donkey fell into a well. He hadn’t done much harm, but he couldn’t get out of it. The donkey brayed for hours, while the owner, annoyed, thought about what to do. Finally, the peasant made a cruel decision: the donkey was now very old and no longer needed anything, the well was now dry and somehow it had to be closed. It wasn’t worth trying to pull the animal out of the well. Then the peasant called his neighbors to help him remove the cumbersome old donkey and bury him alive in the well. Each of them took a shovel and began to throw shovelfuls of earth that fell on the donkey. The animal was not slow to realize what was happening outside the well: he realized he was lost and began to cry desperately, regretting his long and faithful availability to his master, which lasted a lifetime. But he did not give up. To everyone’s surprise, after a certain number of shovels, the donkey, still and quiet on the bottom, prepared his revenge. The peasant, after a while, looked towards the bottom of the well and was very surprised by what he saw. For every shovelful of earth that fell on him, the donkey freed himself from it, shaking it off his back, dropping it and climbing over it from time to time. In this way, in a short time, everyone saw how the donkey slowly managed to get to the mouth of the well. Shortly afterwards, as soon as the animal realized that he could leave it, he leaped out with a leap and, trotting, emitting a large bray, walked away.
All this to say that we must always be attentive when we give our hearts, our experience, our work, our availability and our goodness to others. Because sometimes they are the very ones who throw the earth on you in the well. The important thing is to always be positive, proud and convinced of what we do.
At the base of it all there must be a fair amount of self-recognition, which, as Patrick Collignon, an expert on the subject, can be encouraged by:
- Remember some important moments in your life when your intervention was instrumental in a solution.
- Repeating each morning in front of the mirror: “I am …“
- Modify your sentences: “I’m stupid” with “I’m distracted”, “I’m a nullity” with “I’m not really fit”, in this way our brain gets used to formulating constructive sentences.
- Make a list, every night, of the three positive things done during the day, even if the day was not particularly exciting, however there will have been something positive.
I therefore invite you to be spontaneous and serene, to greet, to congratulate, to thank, to send greetings with a phone call and not with a text message, to encourage, to trust, etc.
Give, give and give gratitude … wait trustfully, or, no, do not wait … so, when it arrives the positive effect will be even greater
However, always remember that:
- envy leads to a lack of gratitude due to ignorance and rudeness.
- a simple “thank you” costs nothing, but its value is immense and its memory is even more so
- a smile of complacency, a wink of sharing and understanding … little things of absolute and inestimable value !
