I find it rather amusing that people feel the need to thank others for everything.
In some cases, there's no problem, it's perfectly understandbale, you're just stating gratitude for something.
There are, however, certain situations, in which I truly want to confront people and ask them what in the hell they are thanking me for.
The first example that comes to mind, and the one I'm subject to most often, occurs in the residence building at my University, where I currently live.
First, a little about the building, when you first come in the main entrance, you're in a sort of mini-atrium, and there are stairs that lead up to a second set of doors, which are always locked.
Now, what I find interesting, and surprisingly amusing, is when people feel the need to thank me for opening the door. Note here that I don't mean opening the door, and holding it for them, or letting them go through ahead of me. I don't at all mean when the person in question is going in the same direction as me. What I mean, is when I am leaving the building, which requires me to go through these doors, towards the exit, and others who are making their way in thank me for opening the door.
Now why do I find this amusing?
First of all, what is the purpose of thanking? Simply put, you thank someone as a way of letting them know you are grateful for whatever it is you're thanking them for. As for the reasons to let people know to begin with, I won't even begin to try and figure out, as it has nothing to do with my point.
So now that we know what purpose thanking serves, it's pretty easy to figure out that they are thanking me for opening the door, and are grateful for me opening the door.
Next, let's see why someone might be grateful for something.
As I see it, gratitude generally implies that someone has done something that helps you, or done something for you without expecting any sort of reward. Essentially, gratitude generally follows some act of kindness or altruism.
So now, let's have a look at the situation, and see if there's reason to be grateful.
Here is what is happening : I am trying to get from inside the building, to outside, which requires me to open these locked doors at one point, as they stand between me and my intended destination. At the same time, some other person has the opposite itinerary, but still needs to go through the door. The only difference here, is that I, coming from the inside, don't need to unlock the door, while the person outside does.
So, it could be thought that the person is grateful for my relieving them of the requirement of unlocking the door.
But is this really a valid reason, given the above reasons for gratitude to exist?
I think not. Though I have done something that helps the person, I did not do it to help the person. The latter implies that the purpose for my opening the door was to relieve the person of having to unlock it. This is false; the purpose for my opening the door was so that I could get outside, as opening the door was a requirement for my doing so. Did I do something without expecting reward? Yes. But again, I did not do it for the person. So was there some act of altruism of kindness? No. There was mere coincidence that the time at which I reached, and had to open the door in order to reach my intended destination matched the time at which the person reached, and would have had to unlock and open the door in order to reach his/her destination.
So it's pretty obvious there is no reason to be grateful to me, and therefore no reason to be thanking me. But that is not to say there is nothing to be grateful for or nothing to thank. If you believe in some higher force controlling the motions of bodies, whether it be God, luck, or determinism, you could perfectly well be grateful and therefore thank whichever cause for the above mentioned times to coincide, be it Divine predestination, chance, or The First Cause (whatever that may be).
So truly, I find it amusing when people give thanks for nothing. It makes me smile and chuckly a little inside. I guess I should be thanking them for that.
Um, you don't just thank people who perform acts without expecting reward. Thanks are for anyone who does anything that somehow aids you, even if it's not intentional, by being at the door and opening it when they're looking for their keys or whatever, you're performing them a favour, so they've every right to thank you and it shouldn't be weird.
Perhaps you're not grateful enough to people...
This blog centers around your percpetion of gratitude. For you to be grateful you (you specifically, and I base this on what I read) you must perceive what someone has done as both having a positive outcome for you and coming from a perosn with altruistic intentions. Your blog doesn't take into account people being grateful for anything postitive that happens to them regardless of the inentions of who ever broght about those positive outcomes. The people who thank you at the door are not thanking you because they feel you opened the door for them out of an altruistic desire to help but simply because you made the extra act of unlocking the door for them unnecessary. All in all it can be said they aren't thanking you but are merely expressing happiness for not having to unlock the door.
That's pretty much what I said, but in the example I used the people are saying thank you directly to me. If they're just grateful in general for the situation, why are they thanking me specifically?
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Thanks for nothing. blog
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