Your Admiration Has Been Hijacked

What exactly is admiration?

Admiration: to regard with wonder, pleasure, or approval.

Late 16th century: from Latin admirari, from ad- ‘at’ + mirari ‘wonder.’

When you admire someone or something, you are in essence putting out this flow of wonder.

You see it in children.

They pick up a bug in their hand and show you.

“Mom, look!”

Wonder.

You acknowledge them but you see the bug differently and politely ask them "to take it back outside.”

What has happened is over the years little by little you’ve put less and less admiration or wonder into things.

But you too looked at the bug with wonder when you were a kid.

And now, you have wittingly or unwittingly subtracted your own particles of admiration or wonder.

And yes, you have subtracted it.

It only appears that the people and things of life have become less admirable.

This is not true.

No longer seeing the wonder in things is not an effect thing—-like you got older and the world a bit more hardened and you don’t like bugs.

No.

Bugs and trees and your neighbors are still bugs and trees and your neighbors.

But where you once imbued life, admiration, and wonder into those things around you, you have imbued less.

So the bug needs to go back outside.

I have listened to people have a “so so” reaction to a sunset.

You know, “You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.”

Nah.

You see one and you admire it.

The sunset has a much wonder and aesthetics as you put into it.

Physicists will tell you how it’s just a big ball of burning gas that people have romanticized.

He is right. It’s a marvel of physics.

See?

Definition of marvel: be filled with wonder or astonishment.

Dang. There’s that wonder word again.

And romanticize?

Tell me, when you first met your wife or husband, did you not romanticize about your first date? Your first kiss? How it would be making love to them?

Did you not put tremendous admiration into them when you met them briefly for coffee?

You gazed into your husbands sparkling green eyes and admired how handsome he was.

Every time your wife smiled, you were enchanted.

Wonder.

Admiration in essence is the magic you make in creating the world around you.

And I’m not being airy-fairy or New Age or any of that crap.

Five Year-Old Megan

As a child you brought your crayon drawing into the kitchen to show your Mom or Dad. You were all excited about what you had just created.  

You were putting your own admiration into your drawing.

You wanted them to see it and admire it too.

And when you showed it to your Dad and he smiled and said, “That’s nice, Megan.”

You felt pleased, but puzzled.

At five years old you were sure there was more of something to come from your Dad. You weren’t sure what. You knew though that there should have been more.

More of something.

You felt an absence of something that should have come with the presentation of your Crayola Masterpiece.

You were missing the admiration particles.

And for nearly everyone, the missingness of admiration and wonder is immediately known and felt.

Megan & Dad: Take Two

Your Dad looks at your drawing and puts his coffee aside. He puts all of his attention on you and your drawing. You can feel it. He is looking at it in wonder.

He doesn’t say a thing. But you feel the wonder brewing inside him.

Your little kid- heart is pounding so fast you think you’re going to burst.

You think to yourself: He likes it! He likes it!!

Your Dad kneels down at eye level with you and says:

“Sweetie...this is amazing ! I really love it! Thank you sooooo much!”

And then he reaches over and gives you a big Dad hug.

You feel yourself float out of your tiny five-year old body and you are giddy as hell.

You hug your Dad like he was Santa Claus himself.

That, is the power of admiration.

In scenario one, two things happened.

The Dad had his attention on pressing issues at work and did not take the necessary time to appropriately acknowledge his daughter’s art.

And the fact it was something she created is important.

It’s not like she was told to clean her room and did.

This was something she created.

So, little Megan walks away feeling that creating things doesn’t always come with the admiration particle she expected.

Later when she grows up, Megan is going out on her first date and takes extra measures to get her hair done to make herself more beautiful for her boyfriend.

She has the same kind of childish adrenaline in getting her hair just right. 

Creating herself for her boyfriend.

And when she meets her boyfriend, she is in a new sundress and looks fabulous, new hairstyle and all.

Her boyfriend greets her at the door and says, “Wow, you look great in that dress, Megan!”

She smiles and is pleased.

"But what about my hair?" she thinks to herself.

She gets in his car and on the way to their movie date, she recalls this missingness feeling again.

The absence of the admiration particle is noticeable.

Megan begins to think that going the extra mile or creating things for admiration does not always come with the appreciation she hoped for.

And the Dad?

The Dad had the chance to change the orbit and trajectory of his young daughters life.

See?

In Scenario One, he omitted the wonder particle.

In Scenario Two, he created it.

And both had very different outcomes.

How Our Admiration Has Been Hijacked

Admiration is something you create every single moment you are alive.

You might think this word admiration is only for special occasions.

Like you admire your son who got straight A’s on his report card.

Or your husband was promoted at work.

Or you admire your wife for going out to take yoga classes which is something she’s always wanted to do.

And all of these are valid.

But the truth is this word admiration has become specialized only because it has been made to seem like it is only for these special occasions.

See?

How did something which is the very essence of your communication with your spouse, children, friends, or your fellow man become specialized?

Isn’t every day your spouse, child, friend or family member is alive and living, special?

Is there not something to admire about your friend who has run a 10K?

Or is it just because it has become normal?

“He’s a runner. He runs.”

Your friend who paints part-time.

“Yes, my friend Kathy, she’s painted as long as I’ve known her,” as you take another call.

What has hijacked admiration and wonder is a subtle but ever-present criticism and censure cloaked as socially acceptable conversation.

You may need to read that again.

There was a time in the culture where your ability to admire, communicate, and wonder at people and the world at large was largely unbridled.

But admiration and wonder are under siege.

If you cannot wonder at a person or painting and then remark about how amazing this person or painting is without attendant criticism, your wonder is under attack.

If you don’t believe this, log on to your Facebook account or any social media platform and put up a positive meme or quote for your favorite political candidate.

You will be barraged with one simple thing:

Stop. Putting. Admiration. Into. This. Person.

“Cease and Desist.”

“Come out with your hands behind your head.”

Right?

Or, let’s try a much simpler but subtle attack on admiration.

Something you’ve possibly experienced.

John and Susan are collaborating on a project at work. Susan has left the office and John is still working. John gives her a call.

John: “Hey Susan, I just finished with my client. Where are you?”

Susan: “Hi John! I decided to stop at Starbucks on the way home. I’m having a yummy caramel mocha latte. Want to join me?”

John: Ugh! You drink Starbucks??!! Their coffee is horrible!”

Freeze Frame.

You are Susan.

How ya feelin’ now?

All of the wonder that Susan put into her yummy caramel mocha latte pretty much gets zapped right out of existence.

Now, there’s plenty of replies you might be conjuring up in your own mind for Susan to send a zinger back to John.

Susan: “Fuck you, John. You really know how to ruin a girls day.”

But this is my point.

John is being critical and disparaging.

And yes, some will chime in, “Oh, that’s just John.”

I don’t agree.

That is how John has become.

John got infected by his own devices with the critical-disparaging-virus way back when.

Accepting that, “Oh, that’s just John,” is part of the virus.

And it gets under Susan’s skin too. That’s what viruses do.

So she replies with a hard-edge reply of her own.

And you might say Hooray for Susan!

Yet what is happening here is the level of conversation as devolved into this acerbic kind of banter.

They are both “guilty” of letting the socially critical remark infect their conversation.

And now you hear it on TV and out in life and you say, well, this just how Life is.

No.

Life is not this way.

You’ve been hijacked.

Your hijacker does not have to put you in a headlock and hold a plastic knife under your chin ready to slit your throat.

They just have to get you to stop creating wonder.

It’s Just Between You and Your Spouse:

Your wife cuts her hair into a new “doo” and asks you, “What do you think?” as she preens and grins in the living room.

Freeze Frame.

You are now at the spiritual crossroads of your “Megan Moment.”

And this next part is entirely my opinion.

If what you think and are about to say about your wife’s new “doo” is going to take the wonder out of her moment, it matters zilch what you think about her hair.

Zilch.

Because this is not about you.

You look at her hair and the first impression is you loved her hair when it was long.

Yes. That was then. This is now.

But you can get stuck in then. You want then back.

Did I say, it’s not about you?

It’s about her Crayola Drawing.

It’s about her desire to create something and the hope you will admire it.

Your measuring stick is the past.

Your beautiful wife moved out of the past and into a new moment using new crayons for her drawing.

She drew a new “doo.”

What say you?

And before you jump in and say, “Well, I’m not going to say I like it when I don’t!"

Ahhhhhhh…

So it is about you then?

And yes, you can handle your Megan Moment with your wife any way you choose. After all, “It’s a free country,” as we use to say in Grade School.

Exactly. Grade School.

Yes, it’s your choice. It’s not willed or written in stone what you should say.

The 5-year old drawing from Megan was mostly a mess of colors and lines, thinly representing a day at the beach with the family.

Was it art?

It’s not about what was on that paper drawing.

It’s about what came out of the creative soul of the person in front of you.

So, here’s your Megan Moment.

And understand, you can change the orbit and trajectory of your wife's day however you speak.

And really, if she goes away appreciating your admiration it does two things:

It makes her feel good as a woman.

And...it makes her continue to believe that one can still put creativity into the world and it will be appreciated.

That you can try a new “doo” and put colors on your canvas and your spouse or friend will admire you.

The world only became “hardened” because collectively we’ve put less wonder into it.

“Please take the bug back outside.”

“Honey, I liked your hair longer.”

Think about it.

It doesn’t take much to make a bright new world.

If you’ve ever had someone truly admire you or admire something you’ve done, at that moment you felt like Life was somehow being transported or telepathed directly from them to you.

You felt bigger. You felt important.

You felt you were a good person.

You felt like all was right with the world.

Because admiration is Life.

It is the wonder particle.

When you receive it, you are again filled with the wonder you received from your Mom or Dad’s hug. A memory you will never forget.

And when you give it, I assure you, the other person feels like you just bestowed them with Life. That somehow with no words spoken, that you love them.

And that’s all that's needed as you go forward in life.

Add more admiration.

Your supply is infinite.

So when you have a Megan Moment take pause.

You can change another's day and life for the better by what you say and do.

And that’s truly magic, is it not?

I offer a free comprehensive online questionnaire and a 45 minute no-charge consultation to discuss any issues you have that might be blocking your personal or business success.

There is no pitch. There is no sale. There is no obligation to do anything else. This is my way of letting you know what I do, and hopefully creating a long term relationship. Click on the link below if you would like a free consultation.

Free Phone Consultation with Dave Worthen