The book arrived by courier. As I opened the wrapper, I saw a handwritten note by Prof Bhattacharyya. At the age of 29 seeing my photograph (taken 2 years back) on the cover of a book on the Making of Kolkata, made me feel ecstatic. There were no words to describe how happy I was feeling. I went around the house and showed everyone the book. Acknowledgement and appreciation indeed feel extremely good.
I still remember the initial conversations I had with Prof Debjani Bhattacharya. She is an assistant professor at the Drexel University. It was through email. She had reached out asking what would I charge if need her publisher to use the photogragh as the cover of an upcoming book.
The first time I saw that email, I did not believing myself. Why would a Prof. based in US want to use my photographs as a book cover?
My initial reaction after seeing her email, “it must be some sort of scam”.
We exchanged few emails back and forth once I was sure it is indeed an actual person at the other end of that email ID. I never asked the Prof to share any money with me. Instead, as an artist, I was feeling so good knowing a photograph I have taken is being considered as a cover of a book.
On the 4th of September 2026, just before I was closing my work my colleague mentioned how he visited my website after a gap of 1 month. Coincidentally, he saw my latest article on the concept of UGC. He utilized in one of his client meetings as a primer describing how this florida based hotel should look at creating user generated content.
These articles I end up writing are mostly for myself, knowing fully well who in the world would hardly care of such lenghty reads in this age of quick 30 secs video content. Yet when he mentioned how quickly he was able to grab the concept, wrap it up with his knowledge and share with the client who immediately understood the value of it. I was pleasantly surprised. Extremely happy infact.
Who wouldn’t feel happy if his/her work gets acknowledged by his friends/family/collegues/industry peers and mentors?
Our human mind is wired in a way, where if we get appreciation few nuerons trigger electrical pulses that produces certain amounts of dopamine in us. This brain chemical gives us a feeling of happiness. Who wouldn’t want some more happiness in their lives?
While I write this short piece I am trying to recollect how many appreciations did I provide to my family, colleagues and known individuals in the recent past? I can recollect a few at the top of my mind, but its not a consistent list. Although it is truely difficult to accept and write it out publicly, I do not have a regular cadence of appreciation.
What do I mean by Regular Cadence of Appreciation?
I recently read somewhere (cannot remember the book exactly), we get what we give out to the world. In essence if I would like to get acknowledgement and feel good about some appreciation coming from someone, I would need to provide the same to the world at large. The world mirrors and reflects back what we give it. If we provide positive energy to the world, supposedly the world will provide it back to us.
Not that we should go about our day expecting things in return (learning from the Bhagavad Gita), but hey, isn’t it very easy to criticize rather than appreciate? Isn’t going and accomplishing hard things make us more well-rounded individuals?
If so, then finding reasons to appreciate someone every day on a regular basis can indeed be a very hard thing to do. But it shouldn’t be impossible.
It does not need to be the same individual whom we are appreciate everyday, but can’t we find one individual everyday whom we should be appreciating? After getting the appreciation of being a person who has inspired a colleague to start seeing the world differently I felt so good, energized, exhilarated.
Similarly, my 1 word of appreciation to one individual may just make him feel a little better albeit momentarily.
So that’s that. I would need to write 1 appreciation message to one individual I know off everyday. The same can be documented in a short story format in a page that I can maintain as a log of my appreciations that I provide everyday.
That would become my appreciation journal.
Before I end this piece, let me ask you this, when was the last time you appreciated someone? If its been more than 3 days, go ahead and message, call, meet anyone in your life and express your heartfelt appreciation towards them. Chances are they will feel extremely valued because acknowledgement and appreciated feels good, very good indeed.