Give Your Friends a Gift of Thank You Letters
It is better to give than receive. So why are we still expecting to receive something after donating?
San Francisco writer Laura Turner wowed everyone on Twitter with this simple anecdote from her baby shower. Anyone who has taken a shower can tell you that they are almost always desperately dull. Some parent-to-be needs help assembling all of the baby gear they need to raise a child, and some go through it for the sake of tradition, but it seems rather tedious to throw a big party just because of a new diaper bag. Then, when everyone finally leaves, you have to clean up, make a list of who sent what and get those thank you cards in the mail before the kid pops out and you forget about everything else.
Or you?
During Turner’s baby shower, a guest advised her to give her “no thank you cards.” She wouldn’t have to write one. Both the room and the Internet gasped in response:
This is a brilliant idea and can be applied to all gift giving scenarios. If someone says “Thank you” to you with a genuine smile, that will be enough to make you feel good about your present. If not, it’s because you made the gift more about yourself than anyone else.
Why drag trees there? Do you really need to waste paper? Thank you cards are an outdated way of staying connected, even before email, text messaging, Snapchat, Instastories and Facebook allowed us to thank each other and even acknowledge their generosity. Be even more generous and give people back their time.