A Week of Compliments

Did I only say “you’re awesome” out-loud that many times?? This week, I chose to map out how outwardly optimistic I was. To say the least, it was a weird week.

I reinterpreted my week of compliments into a map of optimism/pessimism. A lot goes through my brain, but I wanted to see how much I balance externalizing my thoughts, as well as internalizing my thoughts — both good and bad messages.

I began to discover: oftentimes, internal thoughts began to become directly linked to external optimism and pessimism as I became more mindful.

And while my data evolved in this interesting, self-reflecting way, I also discovered that this was a week that we could not have planned.

In the week that we decided to chart how complimentary we were towards others and to ourselves, the worst thing that could happen in any job came to be: mass lay-offs. I called the day,“Black Thursday”, and while it was a very sad day to see some of my close co-workers leave the company, I found that it just pushed me to be that much more optimistic, externally.