Tell Them
Attention is one of the most generous things we can give another person.
There is a lot of advice about letting people be.
Let them misunderstand you.
Let them walk away.
Let them make their choices.
There is wisdom in that. We cannot control other people, and we shouldn’t spend our lives trying.
But recently I came across a simple counterthought:
What about telling them?
Tell someone you enjoyed talking to them.
Tell a friend you thought of them.
Tell someone they look wonderful.
Tell the person across the table that something they said stayed with you.
Tell someone their work moved you.
Tell them you noticed.
It sounds almost too simple. Perhaps that is why we so often don’t do it.
Attention is not the same as approval
We have become very good at observing one another.
We see who has travelled where, what someone is wearing, what they are listening to, what they have achieved. We scroll through lives without ever entering them.
But seeing is not necessarily paying attention.
Attention requires something more.
It means looking long enough to notice. Listening without waiting for your turn to speak. Remembering something someone told you weeks ago. Asking another question because you are genuinely interested in the answer.
Sometimes it means saying something aloud rather than merely thinking it.
There is a generosity in that.
Not flattery. Not indiscriminate praise. And certainly not saying things in order to receive something in return.
Just recognition.
I saw that.
I heard you.
I noticed.
The things we leave unsaid
We often assume people know.
She knows she’s beautiful.
He knows I’m proud of him.
They know I enjoyed seeing them.
My friend knows I value the friendship.
Perhaps they do.
But knowing something and hearing it from another human being are not quite the same thing.
A sincere sentence can alter an ordinary afternoon.
Not because it is grand, but because somebody paid enough attention to say it.
And perhaps this matters particularly now, when so much of our contact with one another has become frictionless. A heart. A like. An emoji. A quick reaction.
Useful, pleasant — but not always the same as reaching across the distance between two people.
Attention
The word I keep returning to is attention.
Real attention is increasingly rare.
It isn’t constant communication. It isn’t watching someone’s every move. And it isn’t performing interest.
It is presence.
To look.
To listen.
To remember.
To ask another question.
To notice what has changed.
Attention tells another person, however briefly:
You are not invisible to me.
There are moments when silence is wise. There are people we need to leave alone. There are relationships in which stepping back is exactly the right thing to do.
But silence should not become a philosophy.
Sometimes we should say the kind thing.
Sometimes we should make the call.
Sometimes we should tell someone we enjoyed their company.
Sometimes we should give the compliment without wondering how it will be received.
Not everything needs to become a conversation.
Not every kindness needs an outcome.
Sometimes it is simply attention, freely given.
Tell them.
Rooted in Depth. Radiating Light.
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This piece was inspired by a reel by @diogo.jared: “Let them is powerful… but so is tell them.”