06 : gratitude 🧸

welcome to the sixth informative edition of the ukiyo chronicle! today’s blog is all about gratitude and how to manifest it! do let us know if you have any or suggestions. we hope you enjoy reading, have a splendid day or night and keep smiling :)

everyone might hate working together, and often with good reason, but i feel that these kinds of projects can also be beautiful. in fact, i went to the school i’m in for the subject based around projects and working together they offer. i have never regretted this, although i have my fair share of bad teams. yet these projects can bring a lot of awesomeness as well.

right now i’m working on a game. of course, this project has a lot of interest in the entire class, so we usually sit with 4 or 5 people instead of the 3 that are in the group. one of these people who tends to sit with us gave us the idea for the game for a project, and i quickly learnt to love it. if it all works out, it’s gonna be an awesome adventure-strategy-fighting game. i’m not the only one excited for this idea. i started to share the plan with others, inviting them to be represented as a character usually. but i also started to develop the plan to finish the game after the project was over, with a bigger team and people were eager to . i decided to, halfway through the project, switch from game ideas for the project. this really big and cool game is now totally ours to make, no restrictions.

i’m now with a team of nine. we don’t have a name for our game studio. most of us barely know each other. one person lives on the other side of the world. none of us have any experience making a game, let alone this size. that sounds pretty bad, yet i type this smiling, because i know the team is ionate and willing to fight. i know it will be though, but i also know we can get through it. all of us have so many amazing ideas and i can’t wait to get started. i would spend every waking moment on this game if i could.

that’s what i’m grateful for, for a ionate team, for an amazing experience coming our way, for making this game, for having this project. it’s something so small if it fails, but i know even then i’ll be grateful for it. because then i’ll still have tried it, then i have learned something from it.

— written by : esmee

note : **while these tips may not apply to everyone, these are just ways in which i like to show the people close to me that i care for them ! keep in mind that showing your gratitude is entirely personalizable, and that you shouldn’t feel limited to my ideas; feel free to explore the horizons and display your appreciation however you think best fit :)) **

• tip 1 - messages of appreciation

sometimes, just randomly reach out to the important people in your lives and tell them how special they are to you ! personally, i think that there doesn’t need to be any type of stimulus for people to be told that they’re important, and that you can express your appreciation for someone at any time :) i recall a time when a friend of mine sent me physical mail out of nowhere, with no prior notice, and in it was the most beautiful written letter i have ever seen t-t. in it, she just explained how much i meant to her, and it made my day- no, correction: it made my entire l i f e. to be honest, i wasn’t having the best day, and seeing that letter made me so incredibly happy. it’s funny because that incident just shows how oftentimes, random acts of kindness can mean so much more than even originally intended ! i would honestly say that one of the best ways to convey your gratitude for someone is to tell them; there are so many ways to convey a simple message, and you can truly personalize it to your interests and your relationship with that person. for example, one night a few years back, my best friend was comforting me and giving me advice for something, and to express how thankful i was for her, i sent her a planned sequence of memes that i made from a variety of our favorite shows telling her that she meant a ton to me ! although for that experience i had a solid reason to do what i did, you can do things like that whenever you want uwu. your expressions of gratitude can come in tons of forms, such as simply speaking to them in-person or via call, sending an email or a text (the range is up to you ! a few words or a ton, but both can get the job done equally well  ̀⁽ᵕ̈⁾ ́), sending a mailed letter, etc. ˘͈ᵕ˘͈ point is, feel free to get c r e a t i v e °ʚ(*´꒳`*)ɞ° !! also, i repeatedly mentioned that you don’t need to have a “reason” to express gratitude, but in all honesty, just wanting to convey your feelings of thankfulness is an entirely valid reason on its own !

• tip 2 - personalized gifts

before i explain this “tip”, i would just like to clarify two things; 1. gifting people in a non-metaphorical sense is absolutely not necessary to show you appreciate them !! 2. don’t ever feel that you are obligated to give gifts to those you care about- you being around them is a gift itself :)) however, if you ever have trouble giving gifts to the important people in your lives like i do, my primary piece of advice would be to customize it so that it holds even more meaning for that person. that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to prepare a gift made by you, since there are so many ways to personalize items that you yourself didn’t create ! overall, the general point is to “enhance” the meaning of whatever you’re giving by suiting it to your relationships :>> you could make a scrapbook (real, or digital :00) to present all the memories you’ve made with someone significant in your life, you could buy a mug that embodies your relationship eerily well, make/attain (doesn’t matter how owo hehe) a matching accessory (friendship bracelets ahhhhh, matching sweatshirts :’), etc.), and there’s honestly a whole universe of things that you can make personal to you and the important person/people in your life ! all gifts are great, but i think that personalized gifts carry so much more meaning and depth, since you’re highlighting your relationship to that person in a way and demonstrating how much they mean to you :))

• tip 3 - listening

although you might not know where i’m coming from with this, i think that one of the best ways to express thankfulness is to reciprocate whatever the other person/people is/are doing for you, and directing it back towards them. i’m going to focus specifically on listening in this case, but keep in mind that there is an extremely wide spectrum ! in my opinion, lending an ear is so, so so so so so soooo great at showing someone you care for them <3 by listening intently to whatever they’re saying and not trying to dismiss them (except in certain circumstances in which they might be saying something incorrect, something you disagree with, or just anything you feel isn’t right :<), you’re showing them that their words are important, and they are too ! i find that to be super duper important, which is why i wanted to mention the idea of listening :d

— written by : ethereal

well, that’s all for this blog, and tuc will see you all next year ! ^-^ have a great end of this year and beginning of the next <3

— edits by : bookworm