The Power of Gratitude | Hacker News Reader

The Power of Gratitude

blog.jgc.org

81 pointsjgrahamc7 comments

We're back to the regularly scheduled good content after the rant. Thanks!

Kidding aside, as the author of some minor open source software, and a few things here and there, it's always really nice to receive a note of thanks. Take a moment to do so with that Rails plugin or other little something or other that makes your life easier.

I think a big part of gratitude in the cases like open source software, is that it validates your effort - it's not just that they're being polite to you, it's that they're making it clear they value what you made, that it is worth something to them.

With every installation of Perl comes perlthanks: http://perldoc.perl.org/perlthanks.html

    * Can you use perlbug to submit a thank-you note?

    Yes, you can do this by either using the -T option, 
    or by invoking the program as perlthanks

From older perlbug perldoc it said: Thank-you notes are good. It makes people smile.

While it is indeed pleasant to be on the receiving end of gratitude, there is also real value in being grateful.

The author made the point, that as a result of showing gratitude, he was somewhat rewarded. I find that just the mental boost that I get when I am in a grateful state of mind is valuable.

Another nice benefit of gratitude is that studies have show it improves the thanker's happiness.

"The Happiness Hypothesis" covers some of the research on this. Participants would write a thank you letter to someone they felt they owed something to, or keep a gratitude diary.

There are a few details on this page: http://www.happinesshypothesis.com/beyond-gethappy.html

Jeff Atwood recently commented on this comic http://theoatmeal.com/comics/email that they left out the "Thanks" email. This article and my own opinions makes me wonder why wouldn't you say thanks.

Take blame, give praise

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