Why I reject a compliment before I've even said thank you
Someone tells you it's really good, what you did. The sentence isn't finished and you've already said oh no, it was nothing.
It was nothing. I got lucky. Anyone could have done it. The words come out before you choose them, like they were waiting just behind the other person's sentence. The heat in your face, your eyes going sideways, and right after, you ask them how their day went. A compliment is a ball you throw back before it stays too long in your hand. You're never quicker than you are right there.
There was a table, earlier, where a compliment never stopped on its own. There was always the next bit: and your sister, where is she at with hers. Or a silence a little too long after the good news. So you say it first, before anyone else can. Nobody can take back what you never claimed to have. What it costs is small and it comes back every time: the kind sentence was said, and it never stays with you.
A compliment is a ball you throw back before it stays too long in your hand.
I was wondering…
What would change in you if you let yourself believe, just once, that they meant it?