Welcome to the Best of 225, Baton Rouge’s annual praise-a-thon when we turn the reins over to you, our readers.
Each year I’m overwhelmed by the number of people who take our survey, and I want to thank you all for your enthusiasm, although, truth be told, it is not a particularly daunting task. Humans are wired to give praise and to seek it, too.
“I can live for two months on a good compliment,” Mark Twain once said. And he must’ve received many for that ambitious mustache of his. Yet, praise can actually harm us.
Last year Ohio State published a study suggesting that inflated praise can put too much pressure on individuals of low self-esteem. This runs counter to how we often treat our friends who feel down. He just needs a boost, we tell ourselves.
Instead, a misplaced or overly generalized compliment can cause that friend to spiral.
I did well? How exactly did I accomplish that? How do I meet this high standard every single time?
Even in sincerity, our praise can cause stress.
OK, so you don’t suffer from low self-esteem. Are you #blessed? Winners who let achievements and accolades go to their heads are in danger of their high self-esteem bending into pride and their focus drifting into indiscipline as they watch their rivals pass them at the next turn or their friends fall away.
So, what’s the solution? Perhaps, as author C.S. Lewis suggested, we are thinking about praise in the wrong way. The Oxford professor was writing about a curious observation: the humblest and most capacious minds around him praised the most, while the cranks and malcontents praised the least.
“Praise almost seems to be inner health made audible,” Lewis wrote. “I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment. Men…spontaneously urge us to join them in praising: Isn’t she lovely? Wasn’t it glorious?'”
In short, the longing of joy is to be shared.
Recently I felt this while watching a mop of wet black hair flail and pale hands charge across the neck of a Telecaster as modern blues rocker Jack White held two thousand-plus fans at the Saenger Theatre in his electrified grip. I didn’t even know the guy next to me, but I felt compelled to extend my praise in front of him. “This is incredible,” I said. He smiled and nodded in agreement.
The power of shared joy is why we go to great lengths of time and financial sacrifice to watch LSU play in Tiger Stadium with a hundred thousand other fans even if the game is on television. It’s why we feel a pinch of excitement when a favorite actor makes the cover of a magazine—hey, the editors like him, too!—and it is why we wait with anticipation for massive, well-attended cultural events like this month’s Art Melt.
In a very tangible way, true joy is communal joy if it is complete. And the problem of praise is resolved best when the praise centers on others celebrating along with us the same worthwhile thing.
So it seems that, in the case of praise, like any other gift, it truly is better to give than to receive. And that’s something for us all to applaud.
