Grace Massoud wrote this article in MTV Website:

“If you can’t say anything nice, you shouldn’t say anything at all.”

I live by this old adage. We all fight battles the other person knows nothing about, why add to the pain by giving unsolicited comments or advice. 

Essentially, we can always say something nice and be more courageous in our social interactions. “You have wonderful sparkling eyes. Don’t let anyone tell you any different.”

The simple act of complimenting those around us has a profound impact on our and others’ happiness.

Some people are incapable of showing appreciation or articulating what they like in their partner. Such cases may end in a break up since the loved one will have no way of knowing how deeply they are loved. They will suffer from the lack of positive reinforcement which we all sorely need, let’s not kid ourselves.

How about we all tap into the sources of well-being around us, compliments being a major one of them.

Scientist Xuan Zhao, an expert on compliments, has delved into the psychology of compliments and detected a wall between people stopping them from giving praise, expressing gratitude, and engaging as much as they should. Pegged as “Undersociality”, we tend to underestimate how nice someone will feel or how we’ll feel after saying nice things, among other acts, inhibiting social connection. We overestimate the awkwardness that might ensue as well. 

In addition, science shows that all people are repressed in compliment-giving, noticing pleasant things and not verbalizing them. And this is due to these 3 factors:

1. We underestimate the joy it brings.
2. We have performance anxiety, a misprediction, we worry we will flop the delivery and sound dorky whilst we are merely being judged based on warmth. The recipients will actually be delighted we noticed something praise-worthy about them.
3. The other misprediction holding us back from reacting and engaging is waiting for the right time, missed opportunity after another follows, which in my opinion is the absolute worst.

Don’t assume people are aware of all their good traits. The people we love especially need the affirmation, for compliment-giving is a relationship-building cornerstone.  We should pledge to sharing as many kind words as possible, spreading a bit of joy, and the perfect formula for a compliment that will have a smooth landing is as follows: taking into consideration the context, oriented towards the other not the self, tailormade, bespoke, genuine and no agenda.

The fact of the matter is: a well-delivered compliment is like a free drug that gets them high and gets you high.