Domino letters

Throughout this class, I’ve had a lot of different opinions about it. Some are great while
some are not the best. It was a very different class to what I am used to. I gotta say, playing
scrabble was usually a pretty good day. However, Norton’s field guide was a bit less enjoyable. Surprisingly, the pen and paper drafts were fun to me. Even if everything was wrong. The letters actually gave me an excuse to do something I’ve always wanted to do.
I haven’t written a physical letter in years. It’s been an easy ten years since I wrote a letter
to someone. It’s an old fashioned form of communication that nobody really does anymore, at least in my circles. I can’t remember the last non-birthday card I received. Growing up in the digital age has really taken this “ancient” technology away from us. However, there is something special about receiving a handwritten letter and I wanted to share that feeling. It’s a science that people feel better after receiving a letter

Saeideh Heshmati, assistant professor of positive psychology at Claremont Graduate
University, recently researched what makes people “feel loved.” She found that “small
gestures in everyday life,” like people supporting you without expecting anything back or
showing compassion during tough times, were what participants most agreed upon as
“loving.”

Saeideh Heshmati

Instead of writing my monthly letters to friends and family that I see all the time. I
decided to write my letters to people who could use a little pick-me-up. I wrote a letter to a
family in California. This family was very close to where the wildfires were. It’s a very scary
feeling that I know well from my time living over there. I just recently heard back from the
family. The family’s name was the Nuqdadi’s and they were very close to the wildfires. So close in fact, that they were spraying down their lawns with garden hoses just in case it reaches them. His letter was extremely thoughtful and humble. He explains how thankful he was and how great it made him feel that people were looking out for him and his family. He explained how it was a very scary time and the support really helped him in his family knowing that somebody out there was looking out for them. He even went as far as to say that it restored his faith in the human spirit. I never would have thought that one letter could have so much impact on a family. It’s also
a crazy coincidence that our pets share a name! I look forward to writing back to him soon and sharing some information about myself.

The world is not as big as we make it out to be. We have reached an age where people
hate each other just because of our views. I think it’s really important for us to realize that
everybody’s human and that the majority of people are friendly and thankful. It’s time that we start treating people better and hopefully, this letter inspired that family to send a letter to somebody in need. Who knows, maybe you could start some sort of domino effect. When I look back to this class, I’m going to think back at these letters very fondly.

Work Cited
Shain, Susan. “We Could All Use a Little Snail Mail Right Now.” ​The New York Times ​ , The New York Times, 8 Oct. 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/smarter-living/we-could-all-use-a-little-snail-mail-rightnow.html.