Gratitude I Saw This Season – & Caveats

The holiday season is over. It was sure nice to see so many messages of giving and gratitude, making the Christmas lights twinkle a bit brighter.

The most fun pictures are in the feed at TimeSafari.app (and if it's long after Christmas, well, you can enjoy this particular one and be grateful it isn't your house).

Here are a few messages I saw in my own neighborhood.

One cool expression I heard was from my niece to my wife while they were doing a video chat. They were talking about work that had to be done at their business, where my wife had offered to help... and although my niece was under a lot of pressure in the situation, she said, "Any sacrifice you can do will be appreciated." I love that because it kindly recognizes any effort, no matter how small.

Of course, I've seen many online solicitations due to the time of year. One that stands out is this one for Hylo that contains a message by the matching donor, who says his part comes "without attached strings or expected outcomes". That is a true gift, leaving the usage up to the judgment of the recipient.

Also: Be Aware

There are more and more studies being done on the benefits of unconditional giving (eg. this by Give Directly) – and on the benefits of gratitude in our lives (eg. physical health, plus other effects on our bodies – and the latter includes some interesting points about the Scandinavian mindset). I know that gratitude has provided major benefits in my own life!

But a friend just pointed me to some negative consequences from pressured or traded gratitude:

• Maybe The Gratitude Trend Isn’t All Positive
• The Business of Gratitude Has Taken Over Gratefulness

Good points.

Along those lines, another friend pointed out how random or variable rewards are more motivating than predictable rewards. This surprised me. Dr. Andrew Huberman explains this in a video, along with ways to leverage it to motivate yourself. (And, yes, casinos and marketing departments are using it on you already.)

It's good to be aware of all the angles.

Further Activities

• In Time Safari:
  • You can now see & show off a nice-looking certificate for any of the claims – especially the ones that have other confirmations on them. (That page is accessed by the yellow frame-like button at the top of each claim-detail page.)
    • Note that the person involved can see their own name, as can all the people in this person's network.

• The discovery page now shows a map with the number of projects in each region, under the "Mapped" link.

• To double-down on the caveats, I now recommend a bit more of Dr. Huberman's video from above. This is the time of year where people set New Year's resolutions, and you may have noticed that his video was focused on goals. Well, if you want some quick advice on things to avoid or do differently, watch here on YouTube.
  • The Post-It Fallacy calls out those notes that you stick in a place and leave there; instead, write it each day and put it in a different place.
  • The Accountability Myth says that your reward for telling people of your goal actually hinders your motivation; instead, spend more time telling yourself and maybe even writing down and defining that goal.
  • You'll see that I'm now linking to the YouTube format of his talk because you can scroll along the bottom of the video and find whatever part out of hiss 94-minute video that interests you most – and get motivated by a lofty goal!
    • Thank you, YouTube, for that great feature. (The internet is great.)