Do you feel appreciated? What does that mean to you? How many times have you heard someone say, “I’m working on my attitude of gratitude”? What are they saying? What has happened to our world that has so adversely affected so many of us? 

Appreciation: Recognition and enjoyment of the good qualities of someone or something. 

Attitude of Gratitude: The habit of expressing appreciation, not just special things, but the little things that don’t seem to matter much and the bigger things that do. It’s thinking about others before self, or as some of our moms used to say, “If you look around you can always find someone with problems worse than yours.” 

Kat Jahnigen states some poignant facts about appreciation in her article, “The Power of Appreciation,” featured recently by Rehab Owners Community, a mental health and well-being newsletter. She writes about appreciation in the workplace, but we don’t have to restrict appreciation to pigeon holes. It can apply in other areas of our lives, too. She says that a lot of employees (about 46 percent) have left jobs where they have not felt appreciated. 

My dad worked at a machine shop when my brothers and I were growing up. He spoke of the supervisors who made their ways around the shop to speak with them regularly, asking how mom was doing, how were the kids? Those supervisors knew each employee, the names of their wives, about the family. And the positivity of it all encouraged the men, made them willing to give a little more, to work harder to meet production. Dad often came home smiling and content because he felt that he and his work, crane operator and truck driver, were appreciated. 

The next generation did not feel so appreciated. Younger supervisors came around with demands of “hot jobs” that they “need yesterday.” They expected the machinists to tear down the jobs they were doing to set up for the one demanded immediately.

And a week, two weeks or more later, those parts were still sitting on the floor. “Hot jobs.” Those supervisors had no respect for the work or the machinist who completed those parts, who tore down the job he was doing and set up for the one they needed “right now.” No appreciation. And the apathy grew, in my humble opinion. 

The shop where my dad, and later, my husband, worked was like a big family. They worked together, laughed together, sometimes cried together. Appreciation for the good things they perceived in the unity they shared because they appreciated each other in spite of disagreements, or strikes, or personality conflicts. 

“Employee recognition leads to more engagement and better performance,” Jahnigen writes.

She adds that where appreciation is a priority, fewer workers will leave their jobs as they seek appreciation. 

Count your blessings instead of your troubles. 

Let a smile be your umbrella. 

Every cloud has a silver lining. 

These are things moms of my generation said to us as we learned how to find our ways to, and through, adulthood. 

Jahniger cited a Psychology Today article that refers to a review that “‘an attitude of gratitude’ may reduce your risk of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse, and has been shown to help people adjust to traumatic life events and their aftermaths, while a more recent review found strong evidence that a grateful outlook is tied to emotional and social well-being.” 

I surely miss my mom. She was such a wise woman. I’ll bet yours was, too. 

Family Recovery Center has professional staff who are ready to listen when you have no one else to talk to. The goal is for the health and well-being of all.

For information about the agency’s treatment and education programs, contact the center at 1010 N. Sixth St., Steubenville; by phone at (740) 283-4946; by e-mail at info@familyrecovery.org; or visit the website at familyrecovery.org. FRC is funded in part by the Jefferson County Prevention and Recovery Board.  

(Brownfield is a publicist with the Family Recovery Center.)