The Value of Appreciation
MANY men and women underestimate the value of expression; they take too many things for granted; they assume that their affection, or their gratitude, or their sense of obligation, is understood without words. Such people are often surrounded by those who are craving some expression of affection, some word of approval, some kind of recognition. The best work is sometimes done with shut teeth and a fixed purpose, in dead silence, so far as the world is concerned, without a murmur of applause or a word of thanks; but this is not the way in which work ought to be done among intelligent men and women, and it is not the way in which, as a rule, the best work is evoked from the greatest number of people. The majority of men and women get the best out of themselves when they are in a congenial atmosphere. This is particularly true of those finer kinds of work which express individuality, quality, and personal gift. A man may do a piece of mechanical work in arctic coldness; he may do it thoroughly in the face of distinct disapproval; but it is very difficult to do the work into which one puts his heart, and which is the expression of the finest elements in one, unless there is some warmth in the atmosphere, something which summons out of their hiding-places the most delicate and beautiful possibilities of one's nature. It is true a man like Dante can do a sublime piece of work with no other approval than his own conscience, with no other reward than his own consciousness of having done his work with a man's integrity and an artist's thoroughness; but men of Dante's temperament are few; and there are a great many other kinds of work, as important as that which Dante did, which could not possibly be done under such conditions. It is the duty of every man, not only to do his work as thoroughly as possible, but to create the atmosphere in which other men and women can do their work thoroughly and well. It is the duty of every man, not only to unfold his own character freely and completely, but to create the atmosphere in which other people are able to develop their best qualities. There are hosts of men and women who depend absolutely on others for their finest growth, who have to be drawn out, whose sweetness and charm never find expression unless they are evoked by warm affection or by generous approval. The world is full of half-starved people whose emotions are denied their legitimate expression; who are hungry for an affection which they often have, but the possession of which they do not realize because it never finds expression; who have latent possibilities of achievement of a very high order, but whose possibilities are undeveloped because nothing in the air about them summons them forth. Such people need a summer atmosphere, and they are often compelled to live in a winter chill. Many of those who diffuse the chill instead of the cheer are unconscious of the influence for repression which they put forth simply from the lack of thought about the delicate adjustments of life. They have never studied themselves, or those about them; and so there are thousands of homes that are without cheer, not because they are without love, but because they are without the expression of love; and there are thousands of offices, workshops, and schoolrooms that are without inspiration, not because they are lacking in earnestness or in integrity, but because the habit of recognition has never been formed, and there is none of that spiritual co-operation which not only gives but evokes the best. There is in life no more pathetic feature than the hunger for a love which exists but never expresses itself, and therefore, so far as comfort, warmth, or inspiration is concerned, is as if it were not. There is a capital of affection and good intention in the world sufficient to warm the whole atmosphere, if it were used; but there are hundreds of capitalists of this kind who leave their means untouched, and who enrich neither themselves nor others because they do not know how to give currency to their wealth. Love is not to be hoarded, but to be spent. It is great in the exact measure in which it is given, it returns in the exact measure in which it is sent away; and society needs nothing to-day so much as the use of this unused capital. If men of integrity and good intentions in the world of business would manifest their real feeling toward their associates and their employees by constant recognition of work well done, by the words spoken almost at random which show that a piece of work is valued, and that credit is rendered to the worker, a large percentage of the social unrest would disappear; for love is the only solvent of the social problems.—The Outlook.