Gratitude Knows No Limits: The Power of a Thank-You Note
I believe in the novelty of the thank-you note. I realize this sounds superfluous coming from somebody born in the year 2000 that currently owns an iPhone like the vast majority of the world’s population. However, I stand by my belief that the actual thank-you note — the physical, handwritten letter of appreciation — is a valuable gesture that deserves to stay relevant.
Now, I have to be upfront and confess that I didn’t always hold this belief. The act of writing thank-you notes for my relatives was, in my eyes, just a chore that my mother forced me to do after every birthday or holiday season. As someone who grew up in the age of the internet, this practice seemed extremely tedious and nonsensical to me. It would be so much easier and and more effective to simply call or text those relatives that I had received gifts from, and express my gratitude, in real time. It’s a chore on both sides: the sender has to go through the arduous task of sending the letter, and the receiver has to go through the trouble of retrieving the message. A call could simply eliminate these two processes. The most confusing thing for me was why I should take time and write out a thank-you note, especially if I had already spent time with said relative over the holidays and thanked them in person for their generous gift.
This isn’t to say that I wasn’t always profusely grateful to anyone that took the time to give me a present during any holiday or birthday prior to college. However, I believed in a more instantaneous approach to showing that gratitude than going through the painstaking process of sending snail-mail. In my eyes writing and sending letters was as relevant as writing checks, which seems outdated these days. After working in retail, I can confidently say that only a small fraction of shoppers still pay in cash, and even smaller still with check books. You see my point.
Just before I left for college, I started to change my tune after receiving a thank-you note from an old family friend, the mother of a little girl that I used to help babysit since she was about nine months old (the girl is eleven years old now). The mom had expressed how grateful she was that I continued to be such a big part of her daughter’s life, and how proud she was that I was going off to college to pursue my passions. She had also included photos of the little girl and me, one holding her as a three-year-old at her birthday party. Needless to say, it was enough to make me a little bit emotional.
My heart was so full holding that physical representation of my friend’s gratitude. I realize that with every word she had written on that piece of stationary, with each photo she had curated to include in the card, she had taken the time and extra effort to really show appreciation for me — she thought of me as someone worthy of that time and effort. This gesture alone was worth more than any call or text that I could have gotten from her; it was something that no technological communication could capture for me.
In conclusion, I can agree that sending a letter through the mail is antiquated. However, in this fast-paced world that we are immersed in, it’s incredibly invaluable to have the opportunity to slow down and really convey your gratitude for something somebody has done for you in a handwritten note. Receiving that note a week later, they will feel that appreciation just as profoundly as you felt writing it. I encourage anybody, especially people of my generation, to really think about the impact that your expressions of gratitude could make. It might just bring us all a little bit closer.