There is a passage as below in a book titled Oscariana, a collection of epigrams from works by Oscar Wilde, an Irish writer well known for his novels, The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Happy Prince.

This sentence is from more than 130 years ago, but it is still meaningful in this current era in which we live. As the pandemic continues, we’ve become accustomed to living a contactless life, and this has drastically reduced opportunities for us to meet people face-to-face and exchange heart-warming words. Life has become so dry and dull that it has made us crave compliments.

So, I became intrigued when I saw the title of “Self-Compliment Diary” on a ritual platform, Meet Me. I clicked the title and saw that it was a program organized by one of my favorite authors who was acting as a ritual maker. I paused and thought for a moment, “It’s not easy to compliment somebody, but it sounds even more difficult to compliment myself. What would I compliment myself for?” In the end though, I was able to draw up the courage thinking that it would be a good idea to start something new that I had never tried before.

Before I began the one-month ritual in earnest, we had a “Declaration Meeting” on Zoom. The declaration meeting was a sort of orientation through which you get to meet other ritual members and hear their explanations of their rituals. I often have online meetings at work and have parties with friends on Zoom, but I felt embarrassed about meeting new people online for the sake of rituals. Fortunately, most people in the group were outgoing so we were able to introduce ourselves with excitement as if it was the first day of the semester at school. We took turns to explain why we chose the ritual and the goal we hoped to accomplish through the ritual. Everyone had different stories, but we all had some things in common.

Everyone was living their lives with a high level of intensity and energy in everything they did, and they seemed to feel exhausted by those compulsive feelings. I found myself to be in the same situation. I was the type of person who tormented myself to excel at work and even my hobbies. I had never met these people before, but as soon as we shared our stories, I suddenly felt a sense of belonging and a sense of community. I was able to confide things to these people that I was unable to tell my family or colleagues. In this way, I met these 20 ritual members who had a lot of similar traits that I had. I was given a mission to write a self-compliment diary every night before going to bed and to prove it to the community. We also decided to hold the final retrospection meeting a month later on Zoom.

The first diary entry was about light subjects. I complimented myself for starting the side project and taking a good break. On the second day, I saw the compliment diary entries others had written and thus wrote a little more. I gave myself compliments about my interpersonal relationships and made a couple of promises to myself for health. The third and the fourth diary entries became longer and more candid. We began sharing our work, hobbies, things about our families and friends, and quickly became closer with one another. Writing the daily diary and revealing my thoughts made me feel relieved, and I also felt like I was gaining some healing by giving compliments for the diary entries that had been written by other members.

As days went by sharing compliments like this, my obsession for doing something productive slowly started to dissipate. One time, after having slept many hours over the weekend, I said to myself, “Alright, I took a good rest for myself. A big compliment to myself!” I even boldly turned off my Apple Watch without closing the three rings. When I did a good job at work, I praised myself as best as I could, and on days when I was badly stressed, I searched for things that I could compliment myself on and find comfort in. The warmth I felt in everyone’s comments became a momentum for continuing to write the diary, and in this way, the members of the self-compliment dairy community endured each day at their respective places.

A month has passed, and we took a session to look back on our compliment dairies that we had written so far. We picked keywords for something you’d like to compliment yourself the most, and for categories you complimented yourself the most. The category I complimented myself the most about was the health management category (drinking less coffee, getting a good night’s sleep, getting medical checkups, taking nutritional supplements). The second most frequently complimented category was mental health management (relieving stress through hobbies, controlling the mind). The third category was work management (starting more difficult tasks faster, trying new things). The last category was things about the side project and interpersonal relations. Writing the diary helped me check what I was concerned about the most, and what I needed the most in my life. I simply let myself loose a little, but I felt much more relieved than before. I thought to myself, “It’s not always a good idea to set high goals. The more you encourage yourself, the more relaxed you become to encourage others.” The fact that I was looking after myself, especially considering that I was normally far too strict on myself, and that I was cheering everyone who had the courage to do the same, was a big comfort itself. That was the power of the compliment dairy.

As I was concluding the ritual, I was asked who I’d like to recommend this ritual to. I replied, “People who work hard every day. People who are taking a break after feeling exhausted from running, and those who are preparing to start running.” Even people who say they are doing well can feel weary and down in the back of their mind, not to mention those who pause for a minute to take a rest. I think back on what Oscar Wilde said, “The only pleasant things to pay are compliments.” How about we take a moment to send a message to ourselves and others and compliment and cheer them on for a month? In fact, we are all people who still need compliments.