I made up a game the other day.

It’s a fun game because you get to play it in secret all the time. It’s like a more discreet version of Words with Friends.

Here’s some background:

Sometimes you do something where you are the obvious person who should be thanked – you volunteer, you give a gift, you listen to someone, you donate to a charity. Personally, I do this thing, when I do something like that, where I wait in expectation of the “thank you.” I get bummed out when it doesn’t come, and then I get all frustrated with the whole business and assume I’m not appreciated.

So.

To stop myself from doing this, I invented a game. I haven’t had a lot of opportunities to use it, yet. But basically it goes like this. When I do something that most people would thank me for, I rush to thank them. If I volunteer, I thank the organization or people in question for letting me volunteer and spend time with them. When someone spills their guts to me and needs advice, I’m going to thank them for sharing. And so on and so on.

I started thinking about what the consequences to the “thank you” game would be – if everyone was trying to rush to thank everyone else. And it just seemed like a really really cool world to live in. Feel free to play yourselves!