We all want it,
but we rarely get it.
We rarely show it,
and don’t know
what to do with it.
Yet worst of all
We only find it
When it’s gone …….

What is it ?

Well it could be a few things but to me it describes Appreciation.

We all have been on both sides of this one. A valued member of a team leaves because basically they weren’t appreciated in their present job and all that we’re left with by their absence is a sense of “I’m going to miss them.” or “they were a valuable member of our team”. …….Too little, too late.

What makes Appreciation so difficult ?

The innate need to feel self-reliant and our own person is at the root of many strange and bizarre human behaviours. I consider the inability to give and indeed receive appreciation a side effect of the increasing cultural trend of self-first and self is all. The interesting shift regarding one’s self image is part of a greater capitalistic movement. The way you define yourself is an interesting exercise; I is prevalent, we are ego centric, the three most important people are Me, Myself and I. The constant self-evaluation and keeping up with the Jones, means that the trend is to move towards self-orientated behaviours. In fact, the mantra of entitlement and selfishness has been heavily espoused as the way of the modern world. I wonder but at what cost.

The strange paradox which appears, is a situation where selflessness and even an altruistic philosophy is facing extinction. How many of us have happily accepted help and or support from a fellow worker or anyone for that matter.

Now let’s say, you begin a company and you need a web presence, email etc. These things are provided by a third party, friend or relative at no charge to you, just to help you out. During the course of a few years, the inevitable server issues pop up and are dealt with. The company is moving along at a reasonable pace, tenders, projects and the general life blood of the company is reliant upon your email addresses and hosting of your website. Now the rub, we all require to be appreciated when we are working, this in its basic form is your pay packet. The fact is your wages or salary are the most tangible way our society shows appreciation.

What if there is no pay, how do you express your gratitude and appreciation?  Should you? Once we lose the structure of a work for pay contractual environment, we waiver and fall because we are now in unfamiliar territory. But why is it unfamiliar?

The sad truth is even the simple act of gift giving has been infected with the economic comparisons of our modern society. Is the gift expensive enough? Is it too expensive? What happened to “Will they like it? Or Appreciate it? Somehow, appreciation has become an economic value. Common sense would dictate that if someone spends 20 hours working for you; a cup of coffee may not be seen as appreciation but it’s a start. There is a very obvious scale to the effort involved with anything, just because someone is happy to help don’t take advantage or abuse the fact.

The situation above will eventually result in an alienation of the third party, the image of self-dictates that the person doing the web hosting for free, must be happy to do so or they would not have offered. Conversely if it bothered them they would say something. The simple fact we are blinded by our own inability to see the effort from the other side when it suits us, is obscured by ego. The fact that your company is doing well has nothing to do with the free web hosting or the email addresses. The ego will not allow the possibility that we are beholden to someone other than ourselves for our success.

The sheer arrogance of this position is staggering. We only exist because of the effort and sacrifices of all those that came before us. Without our ancestors we would not exist, we stand on the shoulders of all that has come before. Yet in the modern world I made it happen and we all can be incredibly wealthy and successful. The modern world rewards us and those who fail or underachieve make their own fortunes. The helpful person is there to be used and abused so that we can spring board to success. This is a very dark and bleak path we are on and not the world I choose to live in. Does it mean I don’t get used? No. Does it mean I don’t help? No. What it does mean is I give the benefit of the doubt, a total of three times. I call this baseball rules, three strikes you’re out. I consider three chances more than enough.

So next time you help someone and expect a little acknowledgement for the effort you have made, try to remember how you responded when others helped you. You may find you did not show or express your appreciation and then be wondering why no one seems to offer aid anymore.

The cost of appreciation seems too great for our modern society and appreciation without capitalistic embodiment so rare we don’t even know how to identify it. I wonder how hard it is to say thank you or buy someone lunch….it may just kill me?