WHEN ASKED if he was bothered by a booing crowd during a game, Bill Russell, the Celtics basketball legend, said, “I never heard the boos because I never heard the cheers.” It’s a mistake to live for compliments. It may mean you live too much for the opinion of others. One should possess conviction of what is right and wrong, of what one wants to achieve, and live by it.

But no one can entirely live that way except maybe the greatest saints. Life without compliments is like life without some essential vitamin. One can survive, but not live well.

We live in a narcissistic culture and some people are stuffed with praise – the praise of their parents or teachers or themselves. A narcissist wears a particular bland and unvarying glow. He doesn’t hear or see others; he emanates light.

But even in this climate, many individuals are malnourished, or only given a sugary version of approval.

A compliment can be a disarming experience, particularly if you have lived a relatively cold existence. A person who is not used to compliments may actually be suspicious when one is given. He searches for ulterior motives because the experience is new. If the compliment concerns something trivial, like an article of clothing, it may simply provide a moment of pleasure or, for some of us, a moment of confusion. Sometimes the praise can be trivial and yet said with so much warmth it carries greater meaning.

The rarest and most valuable compliments are those in which a person has seen into another and found something real that others cannot see or do not value. This sort of compliment can be redefining or redeeming. One or two in an entire lifetime is enough. They are never forgotten, held in the inner chambers, like an heirloom ring in a box.

Kidist Paulos Asrat, in the previous post, made an important point, similar to Aristotle’s argument about virtue. We need to practice giving and receiving compliments to get them right. But practicing in this case is not a question of acquiring artfulness. It is the opposite. It is the process of acquiring artlessness. We speak what we see when we see it. We do not hide or hesitate.

Insincere compliments are a form of anti-praise. Therefore, in order to compliment well, we have to pay attention. We have to stop and consider the people we encounter. In the case of genuine friendship, we shouldn’t do this for the sake of giving praise. That turns a compliment into selfish calcuation. We should know a person for the sake of knowing, out of curiosity and, if we are lucky, wonder. In many cases, as Aristotle said, we cannot pursue friendship in this elevated form because we need to use the connection for some other purpose. But even in these cases, compliments can transform the useful into something better.

A compliment can be the highest form of generosity. The greatest genuises may have been deprived of the genuine article at some crucial stage and a pauper may be rich. Nevertheless most of us are unknowingly nourished, at least to some degree, off the sweet nothings our mothers uttered before we could speak or fully understand.

Better to be lavished with a few kind words. Better to be told even once, in an artless and truthful way, that one is loved than to own much more solid things.

                       — Comments —

A. writes:

“I never heard the boos because I never heard the cheers.” It’s a mistake to live for compliments. It may mean you live too much for the opinion of others. One should possess conviction of what is right and wrong, of what one wants to achieve, and live by it. 

Another way of saying this is that we cannot care about human respect over the truth.

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