You...You Are AWESOME.

One of the final projects I’m in for this Comm150 class is a compliment booth. The Compliment Booth= AWESOME. Kay, so when we did this for the first time I was a bit nervous--it's hard to give compliments to people you don’t know. It’s like that compliment assignment Sister Embree gave us (which assignment is assigned for forever…I only mention it to remind myself. I guess we get our grade for this one in the next life, eh Sis. E?) of complimenting 3 people every week, one needing to be a stranger. But this was complimenting practically hundreds of people (it seemed like that many, I didn’t actually count) in the space of… an hour. We sat in chairs on the lawn facing the back of the library holding a ridiculous sign that says ‘Compliment Booth', and a ton of people walked by. Kiiiiind of unnerving for someone like me who doesn’t like to draw unnecessary attention to herself. BUT, it was great because the missionary in me came out and it was actually super fun! It WAS hard to give compliments that actually sounded sincere and not trite or general. It was hard not to laugh at peoples' reactions, because everyone was smiling! Whether they thought we were being dumb or cool or whatever, they SMILED, they didn't seem to be able to stop themselves. Yes… mission accomplished. Everyone seemed to love it (or at least think we were weird enough to laugh at). Some people came up and thanked us, some people insisted on giving US compliments. Haha, some people purposely walked by several times to get more compliments! My reaction: I couldn't stop smiling! After shouting out about a million compliments that afternoon, I was a bit more open with my compliments to everyone the rest of the day, I just couldn't stop 'em from coming out, I felt like I needed Immodium for the mouth or something!

Why is it that we as humans love, and almost seem to thrive on words of affirmation? (actually I shouldn't limit this to humans...even my dog loves having me tell her how cute she is!) Just nice, simple things said about us, about our looks or our abilities, how much they love our cooking, our family, or even the stupid $2 hand-me-down shoes on our feet? Why are words of affirmation so darn important to us? On the Love Languages quiz, the love language of Words of Affirmation came in third for me, but still, I, like everyone else on this awesome planet, love to have positive and nice things said to me about me, even if it’s just a passing compliment that didn’t take any thought or effort at all. Like in this video clipfrom the movie What About Bob, you can tell the mom loved that Bob loved her cooking. We all love compliments! Why? Maybe because we're such a self-critical/comparing society and we get down on ourselves a lot, maybe because we're stressed out about life and we just need a reason to smile, or because it just makes us feel good to know that you're noticed, that someone took the time to open their mouth and say something nice about you. It makes me want to return the favor, pass it on and compliment someone else!

(Here's a link to the awesome Validation video!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbk980jV7Ao )