I think we should celebrate people more.
We wait for birthdays to write paragraphs about what someone means to us. We wait for graduations to tell people we are proud of them. We wait till someone moves away to tell them how much we appreciate them. Because, somehow, love is easier to express when there is an occasion telling us to. But there are so many things worth saying in between.
There is this saying by the persian poet Saadi Shirazi..
کنونت که امکان گفتار هست
بگو ای برادر به لطف و خوشی
“Now, while you have the ability to speak,
speak, O brother, with kindness and grace.”
There is something so truly simple yet incredibly important in that. We carry around so many beautiful thoughts about the people we care for and respect without ever letting them hear it. We notice who makes a room feel warmer, who’s advice we carry with us, and who has changed a small part of us without even knowing it.
Maybe we assume they already know, but, I don’t think we should.
And perhaps being known is partly about getting to see yourself through the eyes of someone who loves you. There are things about ourselves we may never recognize until another person names it for us. Our words cannot show someone everything they are, but sometimes they can show them a part of themselves they had forgotten was there.
So say the sincere thing, even when there is no occasion for it. Let people hear the good things you would say about them if they weren’t in the room. Give them the words we so often save for birthdays, goodbyes, and looking back. Appreciation means something different when the person it belongs to is standing in front of you, able to carry it with them. Somethings are too beautiful to be left unsaid.
Say It While It Can Be Heard
-F.
