Being Easily Impressed

I'm not impressed with people who are not impressed.

The world is amazing! We're surrounded by wonders. We witness miracles every day. We have spectacular light shows at dawn and dusk with blue sky, lightening, rain, snow, and clouds in between. We have trees, shrubs, and plants bursting with fruits, grains, and flowers. We have oceans and lakes and babbling brooks. We have feathered, furry, and finned creatures everywhere. We have love, language, talents, skills, thoughts, ideas, laughter...Why are we not in a constant state of speechless gratitude? I don't know why.

But I noticed a long time ago there are two kinds of people in the world: people who are easily impressed, and people who are not.

As a teenager, I fell into the latter category thinking it was more sophisticated to withhold praise. I had discriminating tastes and I thought that was a virtue. Only the very best from my limited field of experience deserved my admiration. I approached the ordinary and the unexemplary with reservation. Sometimes I withheld compliments out of personal jealousy because acknowledging someone else's superiority in one area seemed to amplify my own feelings of inferiority.

Gradually I grew out of that and experienced the thrill of recognizing someone else's attributes and accomplishments. Looking back, I think this happened as I associated with older women who were more self-assured and consequently less competitive. I discovered how delightful it is to share a sincere observation of a complimentary nature with someone, because people in general are unaware of their uniqueness. We all tend to think there is nothing really extraordinary about us because the world can summarize us in ten words or less: middle-aged housewife, mother of four. Such summaries don't make us sound particularly exceptional, but everyone has something...It's our challenge as fellow human beings to identify what is good in others (and in the world at large) and celebrate it.

Imagine God planting gifts everywhere -- in every person ever born and in every landscape -- and waiting for those gifts to be discovered, acknowledged, and appreciated.

Here are a few quotes that relate to this topic, which I cannot quite define:

Never lose an opportunity to see anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting…a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

An ungrateful man is like a hog under a tree eating acorns never looking up to see where they came from. - Marion G. Romney

Most of us would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism. - Anonymous

Who can say more than this rich praise -- that you, alone, are you? - William Shakespeare

Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present. - Samuel Johnson

And lips say 'God be pitiful' who ne'er said 'God be praised.' - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Gratitude is the memory of the heart. - Anonymous

All great art is praise. - John Ruskin

Joy is the simplest form of gratitude. - Karl Barth

The ultimate success of my life will not be judged by those who admire me for my accomplishments but by the number of those who attribute their wholeness to my loving them, by the number of those who have seen their true beauty and worth in my eyes. – Dave Grant