Day 23: Spark a thank-you chain

From Helen Sword and Margy Thomas

What better way to express your thanks than with a handwritten note in the mail? (Photo montage by Helen Sword & Margy Thomas)

As many of us learned in early childhood, saying “thank you” for a gesture we appreciate can be a simple yet powerful act of connection. Our thank-yous cement our bonds with one another, making explicit the positive effects we have on each other and expressing that we see each other and are seen in return. For scholars, thank-yous can be living acknowledgements of the sorts of lineages we traced back in Prompt 8.

For today’s #AcWriMoment, think of someone alive to whom you owe a thank you, large or small. Maybe there is someone who has laid a conceptual foundation that your own work builds on or blazed a trail you’re now walking. Maybe there’s someone who has offered a model you emulate or lived out an idea you value. On a more personal level, maybe there’s someone who did you a good turn by offering a leg up at a critical moment, sharing a much-needed resource, or passing on a timely piece of information or wisdom.

As you decide whom you would like to thank today, see if you can think of someone to whom you don’t already express gratitude or appreciation regularly — a “weak tie” who is unlikely to realize the role they’ve played in your life story! This may be someone you’ve never met, someone you haven’t seen in over a year, or someone you’ve only known obliquely.

Here’s a simple script to get you started. As you draft your own message, feel free to use this wording verbatim, modify it, or start from scratch.

Dear [Name],

Happy [day of the week]! I’m reaching out from [your location] to express my gratitude to you for [identify what they did]. You may not realize it, but [Or, “You don’t know me, but”] what you did changed my life for the better by [describe the effect on you of what they did].

Every now and then your act of generosity comes back to my mind, and I keep thinking I should write and thank you someday. Well, today is someday! I was spurred into action by a writing prompt from #AcWriMoments that was posted on U.S. Thanksgiving to encourage scholars to recognize the people whose generosity has shaped our work and careers. Yours has shaped mine, and I humbly thank you!

If receiving this little note has made you think of someone *you’re* grateful to for supporting your work, why not send them a short thank-you as well? Maybe they’ll send someone else a thank-you in turn, who will then thank someone else in their life, and so on, until eventually our chain of scholarly thank-yous stretches all around the world. It’ll be like those chain letters we used to receive as kids, only better!

Warmly,

[Your Name]

Today, take an #AcWriMoment to thank someone who has helped you become the writer, thinker, and/or scholar that you are.

Thank YOU for being here with us this month! As we move into the final week of #AcWriMoments, drop us a comment to let us know which prompt has been your favorite so far.

Helen Sword and Margy Thomas