Can you accept a compliment?

Sometime I think that our society is overly caught up in what we believe we should do to be polite or politically correct. From a young age we seem to learn to reject compliments that are given to us for fear of seeming vain or some such self-focus. How many times have you heard someone pay another person a compliment like ‘You look nice in that shirt’. To be replied with something like ‘Oh this old thing I’ve had it ages’? While this may take away any ego centred preening, it does other things too. Firstly it rejects the offering generously given by the person paying the compliment and it also stops us from acknowledging that we do look nice.

If you are the person paying the compliment, are you saying it out of a sense of obligation or to be mean? Mostly not, you are genuinely giving the person positive feedback and you want that person to hear and receive it. Do you want the person to reject the compliment or brush it off? I expect not.

What would happen if you graciously accepted the compliment given? Would you feel good about yourself? Would feeling good be a bad thing or a good thing?

Maybe next time someone pays you a compliment you could choose to accept it with something like “Thank you. It is nice of you to say so” and notice how you feel.