“Thank You for Correcting Me”

As I mentioned a few Wow’s ago, I’m in the midst of an online education course. This morning our teacher corrected a student’s Sanskrit pronunciation and she responded,

“Thank you for correcting me.”

Why was I so struck by this?

Well, I don’t know about you, but most of us (myself included) do not enjoy being corrected.

At best, we make a joke about it.

At neutral, we gloss over it or offer a plethora of justifications for our choice.

At worst, we get offended, either challenging the person doing the correcting or calling our ten best friends and complaining about it behind their back.

Rarely do we sweetly and thoughtfully thank the person for their input.

And yet, her ability to do so was so lovely that I am writing an entire blog post about it.

Not to mention that I am longing for someone to correct me sometime soon so I can take it out for a spin.

My hope is that some of you reading this might feel the same—be excited about the possibility of simply saying, “Thank you for correcting me,” rather than giving a whole blah-blah about why you made the choice you did, or stewing about it for hours.

If you are, let me know.

And if you get a chance to try it before I do—be in touch! I look forward to hearing how it goes.

 

In the same vein, take a look at “Stop Saying Sorry If You Want to Say Thank You” (For example, if you’re late, thank someone for their patience rather than apologize for being tardy.)