About ten years ago, I got an e-mail letting me know that there was a new Chicken Soup for the Soul book coming out called Chicken Soup for the Single Parent’s Soul, and they were looking for submissions. As you probably know, this series of books has been around now for many years and there are hundreds of different Chicken Soup titles, which are made up of inspirational stories written by various people, focused on specific themes.
I’m a huge fan of these books and decided to write a story for this one called “Mom Taught Me to Play Baseball.” Because my parents split up when I was three years old and my dad wasn’t around a lot, my mom, who’d been a physical education teacher in the past, was the one who taught me how to throw and catch. She went to all my T-ball games, all my Little League games, all my youth league games, most of my high school games, and even many of my games in college when I was at Stanford. Once I got drafted and started playing professional baseball, my mom even flew out to visit me and see me play in the minor leagues.
The story that I wrote was an acknowledgment of her—everything she’d done, sacrificed, and contributed to me and my baseball career. I was pretty self-conscious about the story and my writing, because at that point in my life I wasn’t doing much of it at all. It was before I’d published any of my own books and before I really even started writing articles or blog posts of any kind. Although it felt scary, I shared it with Michelle and she actually liked it.
I gathered the courage to submit the story, but didn’t share it with my mom since I was still feeling quite nervous about it. After a few months, I hadn’t heard anything from the Chicken Soup folks, so I just assumed it hadn’t been selected. I figured they’d received a large number of submissions and mine simply didn’t make the cut. Not long after I had resigned myself to the fact that it wouldn’t be published, I got an e-mail saying, “Congratulations, we’d like to include your story in the book.” I was thrilled!
I immediately told Michelle, who was equally excited. Then I said to her, “I’ve got to call my mom and tell her.”
Michelle said, “Don’t call her.”
“What do you mean, ‘don’t call her’?” I asked.
She said, “What if you wait until the book comes out? You could surprise her.”
“Wow, that’s a great idea,” I said.
We decided that in addition to not telling my mom, we weren’t going to tell anyone, so we could ensure that the secret would stay safe. I sent an e-mail back to the woman at the publishing company who had contacted me, to find out when the book would come out. She got back to me and said it would be 14 months. As excited as we were about the story, the book, and the secret, 14 months seemed like a long time. We weren’t sure if we could make it that whole time without letting it slip, but amazingly we did. Over a year later, the book came out and no one close to me, especially my mom, had any idea my story about her was in there.
It came out in February, right around my birthday, and I got an advance copy. We were having dinner at our house to celebrate my birthday, just a few of us—my mom, sister, brother-in-law, and niece, in addition to Michelle and me. After dinner we went to sit in the living room because they had brought some presents for me. Once we sat down, I turned to my mom and I said, “Mom, before I open up my gifts, I actually have a present for you,” and I handed her a copy of the book, which I’d wrapped.
She looked at me and at the gift with a puzzled expression. She said, “Honey, that’s really nice, but it’s your birthday. I’ll open it later.” Then she put it down. I hadn’t expected this response and now she was messing with my plan.
I picked up the book, handed it back to her, and said, “Mom, I know it’s my birthday, but do me a favor, just open it up.”
At this point, I could tell she was getting a little uncomfortable and even frustrated with me, but she obliged and opened her present. Once she saw what it was, she said, “Thanks! How nice that they did one for single parents. Okay, I’ll look through it when I get home.” Then she put the book back down and looked at me as if to say, Can we get on with your presents now?
I picked it up again, handed it back to her, and said, “Mom, listen, I read this book and there’s a story in here that really reminds me of you. In fact, I put a bookmark on the page where it starts, page 294. Would you do me a favor and read the story out loud to everyone?”
Now my mom was really uncomfortable, confused, and definitely annoyed with me. Somewhat begrudgingly, she grabbed the book, opened it up, and started to read the story, having no idea what it was or why I was asking her to do so. The first line of the story read, “‘On June 1st, 1995, I was standing on the pitcher’s mound at Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, Nebraska, about to throw my first pitch in the College World Series.’” My mom looked up after reading that first line with a smile on her face and said, “This guy pitched in the College World Series!” totally not getting it.
Then she started to read the second line, and she stopped. She looked at me, then back at the book, then back at me again—you could tell her brain was working really hard. Then all of a sudden, her eyes got big and you could see that she finally got it—that the story was about her, and that I wrote it.
She dropped the book and started to cry. I reached over to pick it up off the floor. At this point I was crying, too. I handed the book back to her and said, “Hey, mom, if you don’t mind, could you read the rest of it?”
And she did. My mom read that entire story out loud to all of us. It took her a little while, and it was quite emotional for both of us. It was a big deal for me, both personally and professionally, to have that story published. I was proud of it; it felt like a pretty big accomplishment, especially at that moment in my life. But the most meaningful aspect of it by far was being able to give it to my mom and to acknowledge her in that way. When we take the time and have the courage to let the people around us know how much we value them, it’s not only a gift for them, it’s a gift for us as well. That’s how powerful it is when we express our appreciation for people—whether we do it in a big dramatic way or in a simple day-to-day way.
Appreciating another person doesn’t mean that everything about them is perfect (no one is), or that our relationship with them is completely harmonious and free of conflict or issues. My mom and I had lots of challenges in our relationship throughout my life. But being able to acknowledge and appreciate my mom in that way was so meaningful for her and for me. And, now that she’s gone, it has an even greater and deeper significance in my life and our relationship. Sadly, we sometimes wait until it’s too late to let people know how much we appreciate them.
We have to be willing to look for and find things to appreciate about other people—which sometimes can be challenging, especially depending on who it is. Ironically, appreciation of others has less to do with them and more to do with us. We don’t actually see people as they are; we see them as we are.
A number of years ago I was talking to a mentor of mine about some people in my life who were really bugging me at the time. After complaining about these individuals and explaining some of the details of the various conflicts for a few minutes, he asked me, “Hey, Mike, who’s always at the scene of the crime?”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Who is the common denominator in all of your relationships?” he asked.
“Oh,” I said. “I guess that would be me.”
“That’s right,” he said. “Everyone in your life is actually a mirror. When you change and you change the way you relate to people, the people around you actually change in your experience of them.”
“So it really is all about me?” I asked, somewhat kidding and somewhat serious.
“Well, not in the ego-based, selfish way you might think. But in a real sense, yes, it is all about you.”
Appreciating other people (or not) is actually just an extension and expression of us appreciating ourselves (or not). When we authentically appreciate ourselves, we give ourselves permission, perspective, and awareness to look for, find, and see the inherent beauty and value in other people. Once we see this, we can express it. When we have the courage to express our appreciation in a generous and genuine way, it can literally transform our lives.
As Wayne Dyer says, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” When we expand our capacity for appreciation of others and of life, what we’re really doing is expanding our capacity to appreciate ourselves and, in so doing, we become more available for the love, connection, and fulfillment that we desire.