Being Thankful and Saying Thanks
Today I received a wonderful email. It was from a home schooling mom who also has made a homeschooling consulting business for herself. Basically, it said thank you.
“I am part of your yahoo group for those homeschooling high schoolers and want to thank you for this group as well as the great information I have found at your site.
I recently was able to forward your site to a client of mine who was looling for more info on high school homeschooling (she has been homeschooling from the beginning and has a child at grade 10 level). I was able to refer her to your site for info on university admissions. Part of my recommendation to her was to work backwards from her sons end goals. (the progams that he was interested in at university) Your info was confirmation of my plan and the other research that I have done. (. . .) So I thank you again for your support and for sharing your knowledge with the rest of your homeschooling family. “
What made this thank you so particularly special for me was the last sentence: Your info was confirmation of my plan and the other research that I have done. You see, the kind of thank you’s I’m used to getting are of the I don’t know what I’d ever do without you variety. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely sentiment. It’s also a heck of a lot of pressure, and one of the reasons I needed to leave the province. 
But this woman
- already knew the answers she needed herself;
- found, apart from me, the confirmation she needed; and
- took the time to write and thank me anyway.
It’s very easy to thank the people you’re very thankful for. If I gave you a kidney, I might expect there to be some profuse thanking from time to time. If you’re just quietly reading my blog and using my website, then I’m really quite unaware that you exist, and therefore have no expectations of incoming gratitude.
Since thanking someone for a thank you has the potential to lead to an ugly spiral of politeness, I’ll instead use the energy from the psychological boost to spend time adding content to the website today. Isn’t it nice how positive feedback can be its own driving force? The author of the email could have pointed out that I hadn’t added anything to the site in months, and when was I ever going to get around to posting xxxxx anyway? Then, perhaps out of guilt and shame I’d edit the website for fear it was making me look bad. Instead, I’m excited about jazzing up my online presence. And in turn, everyone benefits, because there’s more information on the site.
So, consider it your Thanksgiving challenge to thank someone who wouldn’t expect it from you! And to all four of you who might be reading this, please accept my warm and sincere thanks for giving me a voice. Some people write to hear themselves talk. While it may at times seem like this is my motivation, that’s not what I’m about, I promise! Everything I write here is with the purpose of providing information, because in the words of our country’s most profound living poets, “It’s not what you’re sure of, it’s what you don’t know.”
It’s my hope that readers who are informed about their children’s education, the system at large and the options within it will have the confidence to trust their instincts and make unconventional choices for their families, if that’s what they want to do. We’re only limited by what we believe holds us back. The more families that exercise their right to good education, then the less unconventional these options become and slowly the road is paved. This is really and truly, creating our own reality.
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