Classes have been tough for students and professors alike over the past couple semesters. For most classes, after an hour of listening to the talking heads of peers and educators on Zoom, many participants exchange a “thank you” with their professors before leaving the call.
I began expressing thanks to my professors shortly after the pandemic began because I realized the long days weren’t just mine, but theirs as well. I thanked them for the time and effort, seen and unseen, they took to teach their students as best they could when they were trying to learn for themselves too.
This gratitude is something we should have shown everyone, not just our professors, long before the Zoom classes and the pandemic began. We should be appreciating the hard work people put in for others, and we should appreciate our own hard work more often as well.
When students are feeling a little down, anxious or overwhelmed, expressing gratitude can help people “acknowledge the goodness in their lives” and connect to something larger than the individual, according to the Harvard Medical School.
That connection can be to nature and the outdoors, other people or a higher power. Whatever the connection, students should invest their time in being grateful for the things they might usually take for granted.
But how should someone go about expressing more gratitude? There are several answers, and all of them are simple. The first is to just say it, like the recent development of students thanking their professors.
Is there a particular coworker who has been making the job just a little easier? Thank them and acknowledge their hard work. It will make them and you feel good, and may just turn out to be the bright spot of sunshine someone needs to motivate themselves for the rest of the day.
Another way to stay grateful is to literally count your blessings, according to Harvard. Making time to sit down and write about what you’re thankful for, whether it’s in a journal or in a note for someone else, can turn your thanks into something more concrete. Prayer or meditation is also another way to cultivate gratitude.
Neel Burton, a psychiatrist who teaches in Oxford, England, said it is easy to confuse gratitude with indebtedness because it is a “contained and restricted obligation” to compensate for something given, but it can lead to resentment of the giver by the receiver.
“Grateful people are much more engaged with their environment, leading to greater personal growth and self-acceptance and stronger feelings of purpose, meaning and specialness,” Burton said in Psychology Today.
Showing my gratitude for my professors and the hard work they put toward teaching me by giving them a quick “thank you” as I’m leaving class makes me feel good about showing up and paying attention. I hope it makes them feel good too.
As we reach the last stretch of the spring semester, maybe even the last stretch of the pandemic, keep showing that gratitude, stay thankful and be more active with what’s around you.
Anteia McCollum can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @antxiam5