On appreciation

It has been my experience over many years, in fact ever since my early childhood, that praise and appreciation rarely comes to me. I was getting it to a fairly large extent in my very early childhood as a somewhat popular kid in kindergarten mainly because of my sister who was seven years older than me and consequently in a much higher class. She used to present me to her friends and teachers as she had helped me learn a few Rock n Roll songs of the 1950s.  But when I was made to change schools and jump classes to fifth grade, all praise and appreciation suddenly came to a dead halt. I've  been looking for praise ever since and it seems to be quite evasive.

This brings me to examine my own tendency to really appreciate others. I sometimes become aware that I seem to lack the ability to realize the full value of the favors done to me by others. My mother was a severe asthmatic and it was quite an effort on her part to cook and provide for the nine of us who were in the household. Those were the days without pressure cookers and food processors/mixers. Cooking was done at times on electric stoves that did not supply much heat. At other times food was prepared using kerosene stoves that supplied an erratic flame without much heat and it would take quite a while to prepare lunch. Indian cooking used the processes of grinding and this was done using huge rounded boulders and took a lot of manual effort. With her asthma and terrible shortness of breath it would have been quite a debilitating task. If I were to really appreciate this aspect, I would be gracious enough to pardon many areas in which she was quite unfair to me. With the advent of psychoanalysis and the upbringing of children being viewed from a critical angle, we seem to have become increasingly fixated on only those aspects in which parents have erred. In the process we seem to have lost value for the great nourishing things that parents do, and even the books we read teach us to ruminate on the deficiencies that existed in our upbringing. I say this quite openly that I have fallen tremendously short in acknowledging the efforts of my parents in front of them while they were alive. While it is true that I and my wife did render service and did not fall short in our efforts, I confess that perhaps my appreciation of my parents didn't quite reach them. At the same time this is also true that my parents, particularly my mother, fell quite short in making me feel secure and loved. Yet it is time now that I fix my gaze on the favours she bestowed rather than on her deficiencies. Ever since modern psychoanalysis has evolved, there seems to be quite a shortfall in the appreciation of parents so that quite a few witticisms run thus:-

"A psychiatrist is a person to whom you pay Rs.300 an hour to squeal on your mother !"  or again

"A Freudian Slip is where a person says one thing but means a mother!"

I acknowledge that when I feel unappreciated and my thoughts meditate on how short I have been in doling out my appreciation and even in realising the genuine value of things, I seem to get a better perspective and a greater degree of acceptance of the fact that I may never get the thing that I desire.

I've written hundreds of letters that were all unacknowledged; I keep posting messages in search of friendship and nothing ever comes back; I have genuinely liked and appreciated the efforts of many mates but my efforts are largely ignored. In such instances I reflect on how much appreciation I managed to develop for the efforts of my grandfather who was quite a hardworking and meticulous geologist who trudged large parts of Karnataka on foot when there were no jeeps around for field work. I regret that I have not put in the requisite effort to read in detail all the output that he had produced even though I was a geologist working in Karnataka. Of course it was  also true that my health had severely failed while I was in service, but then, when in my own life there has been a severe shortfall from my side  in praise and appreciation, or even in normal acknowledgement as a person, there could be equally ample reasons for my not getting it.

In conclusion, I would like to say that a greater sense of gratitude for things that have gone right and a better sense of acceptance when things don't go the way I desire, by a better analysis and rationale can provide greater value to life's experiences and protect me and others like me from falling into despair.

                           xxx