My Guest Post: Asking 'How Was Your Day'

"There is not enough appreciation in our world. We don’t say thank you, give compliments, draw attention to someone’s hard work, or tell people how much they mean to us, as much as we should. I believe in the importance of appreciation, and I’ve been on a mission to urge others to appreciate. But, I’m only one person with one blog. So, I’m starting a revolution. I have reached out to the greatest bloggers I know and asked them to share their thoughts on appreciation. Some will write from a business perspective, some from personal experience, but I know all of them will have something valuable to share. You may think that you don’t need to appreciate people. They already know how you feel, someone else will recognize them for their hard work, you’ll thank them the next time you see them. The truth is, you never know what tomorrow will bring." - Samantha Karol

New York blogger Samantha Karol, from Life Is Like A Box Of Chocolates, recently asked me to be part of her Appreciation Revolution series. I'll admit that the guest post I wrote for her took me forever to complete! Although I loved the idea behind her Appreciation Revolution series, I had reservations about the subject I finally chose to write on. I thought about changing the subject of the post completely because to me it read mushy, made me sound pathetic and was just flat out embarrassing. In fact, I deleted the post twice, then rewrote it three times. I chopped it up and spliced it back together once more before deciding enough was enough. I was just going to put it out there. So here it is...

Asking 'How Was Your Day'
"Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things." - Robert Brault

In August 2009, I started a Gratitude Journal. I’ve always been able to appreciate the little things in life. So, writing a daily entry in a Gratitude Journal seemed like it would be an effortless task. Although I soon realized that the hard part wasn’t finding something to be grateful for, but rather finding 5 minutes at the end of each day to devote to writing about it.

Not long ago, I was caught writing in that little, black Moleskine. And while I hid my written words from prying eyes, I did make a verbal confession outloud. With a big, stupid grin on my face I proclaimed...

Me: I think I may be falling in love.
My Sister: Ha. Really? How do you know that?
Me: Because she always asks how my day was.

I know. It’s ridiculous. Falling in love with someone because they ask how your day was? To everyone else it’s called "engaging in light conversation." It’s a simple question, a polite gesture. But to me, it was extremely rare, and meant the world! It sounds bizarre, and probably quite sad, but until recently, I’ve never had a girl ask me how my day was. Never! I just don’t think they ever cared enough to ask, or had any genuine interest in hearing the answer.

Continue reading the full post here.