As you might have heard, Spirit, the Mars rover, got stuck. A 7-year-old kid named Julian suggested a way to get it unstuck, and the drivers were so impressed by it that they’re sending him a reward.
Thanks, Atley.
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How to be grateful to someone – even when you really don’t want to
A change in perspective can make gratitude easier.
There are few greater feelings than the sense of heartfelt gratitude to another human being who has done you a solid. Sincere thanks and reciprocation are part of the glue that binds us in human relationships.
But sometimes you’re just not feeling it. You know that you have benefited from what someone has done for you, but you don’t really feel grateful to them for doing it. Most teenagers go through this period with their parents. Maybe you take your partner or colleague for granted.
For me, 14 years ago, it was my mother-in-law. She had upended her life to move from South Dakota to California to live with my wife and me to assist with childcare after our daughter was born; no other source of childcare fit with our demanding work schedules and my commute. She made a huge sacrifice that transformed our lives, but there were moments when I really struggled to feel grateful.
Since that time, I’ve come to devote much of my research as a philosopher to studying how the way that we interpret each other as people shapes our relationships. That work has helped me to understand why I struggled to be grateful – and taught me a little bit about how to do better.
Personal gratitude
I’ve found that the hardest part of feeling grateful to someone is the “to” part. It is one thing to be impersonally grateful that something happened and another thing to be personally grateful to someone for doing it. These are not the same.
Both forms of gratitude require seeing something as a benefit. And they both require a humble recognition of how easily things could have been otherwise. When the rain ends a drought, an atheist can feel grateful that the tomatoes will survive. But the atheist isn’t grateful “to” anyone for the rain.
Priests offer prayers to Varuna, the Hindu god of rain, as they stand in the Osman Sagar on the outskirts of Hyderabad, India, on July 16, 2013. AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A Personal gratitude requires more than impersonal gratitude. It is an example of what the philosopher Peter Strawson calls a “participant” attitude: an attitude that we have toward people, but not toward things. And a large theme in my work is that participant attitudes such as gratitude involve giving someone credit for what the attitude responds to.
But which benefits we give people credit for is complicated. As philosophers such as Tony Manela have argued, actions motivated primarily by money, self-interest or insecurity don’t merit personal gratitude, even when they benefit you. Actions motivated by love, generosity or concern, on the other hand – or other “pro-social” motives – do.
Sometimes people fail to feel gratitude because they take someone for granted, not noticing how easily they could have done otherwise. This wasn’t my problem with my mother-in-law. It was obvious that she didn’t have to move across the country to live with us.
But it was hard to avoid noticing that she had always wanted to live in California. Sometimes it is hard to feel grateful because of how we interpret someone’s motives. They could have done otherwise, but we don’t think their action was really “about us.”
Bad motives are easy to find
Sometimes ungenerous motives can help people to be generous. Your child’s kindergarten teacher isn’t a volunteer. They may be a naturally generous person – but still, they probably wouldn’t be working with your child on spelling, arithmetic and handling adversity if they weren’t getting a paycheck.
It’s still appropriate to be grateful to them. Their financial incentive to show up for work enables their generosity, rather than competing with it.
Your child’s teacher might be generous, but their job enables them to act on that generosity every day. svetikd/E+ via Getty Images Elementary school teachers are not alone. After all, people’s decisions are often driven by many factors: some that merit gratitude and others that don’t. So if you go looking for selfish motives, you are bound to find some.
Take your partner, for example. They do something that benefits you: buying you flowers, filling your tank with gas or finally taking their turn to wash the dishes. They are partly motivated by generosity, love or communal spirit. But, as in any close relationship, sometimes they may be hoping to get something out of it: reciprocation, maybe, or getting you off their back.
It matters which of these you interpret as their “true” motive: Seeing it one way opens you up to gratitude, while the other precludes it.
What are ‘true’ motives?
The distinction between someone’s “true” motive and the other motives that enable it looks like the distinction between causes and enabling conditions. For example, when you drop a wine glass, the fragility of the glass enables the drop to cause the break, but it isn’t itself a cause of the break – the drop is.
In the case of the falling glass, there’s a clear, objective answer to what caused the break and what merely enabled it. But I believe that relating to people is deeply different than understanding physical things.
The key question in whether to be grateful to someone isn’t about which motives count as “causes.” It is about which cause we need to bring into focus in order to see the other person more clearly for who they are.
See it their way
In other words, it’s at least partly a matter of perspective. If someone does you a favor, but you know they’re hoping for something in return, you can see that as their “true” motive. But you don’t have to see it that way. Instead, you could see that motive as the condition they need for their generosity to thrive.
Shifting perspectives isn’t easy. When you’re doubting someone’s motives, their lack of generosity can feel obvious. But it helps to remember that people tend to believe they’re acting generously. If you want to respond with gratitude, try seeing them as they see themselves.
What if that doesn’t work?
Well, the next best thing to being grateful to someone is being grateful for them. Starting there is a good way to remind yourself of why you value this relations
This article originally appeared on The Conversation. You can read it here.
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America’s friendliest states
Mountain West states lead the nation in community connection.
The ways in which Americans connect vary widely by state. A range of factors contribute to a place’s overall character, but the time residents spend socializing, volunteering and helping people outside their own homes can shape how friendly it feels.
SmartAsset analyzed the 50 states by the number of minutes per day residents spend on these three “friendly activities,” using time and action as measures of how communities connect. The results offer a behavioral snapshot of where residents spend the most time engaging with others in their communities.
Key Findings
- The Mountain West leads the rankings. Montana (No. 1), Utah (No. 2), and Wyoming (No. 3) took the top spots in the study, with residents of Montana averaging a nation-leading 95 minutes per day socializing, volunteering and helping others.
- Mountaineers are the most likely to help others. Although West Virginia ranked No. 24 overall, its residents spent more time than any others providing unpaid help to people outside their own homes, about 30 minutes per day.
- Rankings challenge some stereotypes. Despite its reputation for “Minnesota Nice,” Minnesota ranked No. 11, just outside the top 10. Washington, home to Seattle and its “Seattle Freeze” reputation, ranked No. 10.
- Three Northeast states in the top 20. Although residents of Northeastern states are not always seen as especially warm by outsiders, three states in the region made the top 20: Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Maryland.
The 20 Friendliest States
- Montana
- Average Minutes Spent Socializing (daily): 43.36
- Average Minutes Spent Volunteering (daily): 35.62
- Average Minutes Spent Helping Others (daily): 15.89
- Utah
- Average Minutes Spent Socializing (daily): 38.24
- Average Minutes Spent Volunteering (daily): 32.46
- Average Minutes Spent Helping Others (daily): 20.95
- Wyoming
- Average Minutes Spent Socializing (daily): 35.57
- Average Minutes Spent Volunteering (daily): 40.49
- Average Minutes Spent Helping Others (daily): 7.07
- Oregon
- Average Minutes Spent Socializing (daily): 53.74
- Average Minutes Spent Volunteering (daily): 14.85
- Average Minutes Spent Helping Others (daily): 12.36
- Illinois
- Average Minutes Spent Socializing (daily): 32.37
- Average Minutes Spent Volunteering (daily): 14.12
- Average Minutes Spent Helping Others (daily): 28.43
- Rhode Island
- Average Minutes Spent Socializing (daily): 52.15
- Average Minutes Spent Volunteering (daily): 5.33
- Average Minutes Spent Helping Others (daily): 17.35
- Nebraska
- Average Minutes Spent Socializing (daily): 39.3
- Average Minutes Spent Volunteering (daily): 11.08
- Average Minutes Spent Helping Others (daily): 24.06
- North Dakota
- Average Minutes Spent Socializing (daily): 35.5
- Average Minutes Spent Volunteering (daily): 24.61
- Average Minutes Spent Helping Others (daily): 12.88
- Missouri
- Average Minutes Spent Socializing (daily): 43.44
- Average Minutes Spent Volunteering (daily): 16.05
- Average Minutes Spent Helping Others (daily): 11.86
- Washington
- Average Minutes Spent Socializing (daily): 30.59
- Average Minutes Spent Volunteering (daily): 24.04
- Average Minutes Spent Helping Others (daily): 14.92
- Minnesota
- Average Minutes Spent Socializing (daily): 30.33
- Average Minutes Spent Volunteering (daily): 11.75
- Average Minutes Spent Helping Others (daily): 25.18
- Massachusetts
- Average Minutes Spent Socializing (daily): 35.38
- Average Minutes Spent Volunteering (daily): 9.63
- Average Minutes Spent Helping Others (daily): 20.91
- Wisconsin
- Average Minutes Spent Socializing (daily): 36.51
- Average Minutes Spent Volunteering (daily): 8.46
- Average Minutes Spent Helping Others (daily): 20.86
- Colorado
- Average Minutes Spent Socializing (daily): 27.08
- Average Minutes Spent Volunteering (daily): 16.82
- Average Minutes Spent Helping Others (daily): 20.31
- Maryland
- Average Minutes Spent Socializing (daily): 26.05
- Average Minutes Spent Volunteering (daily): 25.72
- Average Minutes Spent Helping Others (daily): 12.39
- Michigan
- Average Minutes Spent Socializing (daily): 38.9
- Average Minutes Spent Volunteering (daily): 11.21
- Average Minutes Spent Helping Others (daily): 12.98
- Tennessee
- Average Minutes Spent Socializing (daily): 33.82
- Average Minutes Spent Volunteering (daily): 9.45
- Average Minutes Spent Helping Others (daily): 19.53
- South Dakota
- Average Minutes Spent Socializing (daily): 41.61
- Average Minutes Spent Volunteering (daily): 0.21
- Average Minutes Spent Helping Others (daily): 20.61
- Hawaii
- Average Minutes Spent Socializing (daily): 26.3
- Average Minutes Spent Volunteering (daily): 14.84
- Average Minutes Spent Helping Others (daily): 20.98
- Virginia
- Average Minutes Spent Socializing (daily): 38.96
- Average Minutes Spent Volunteering (daily): 10.92
- Average Minutes Spent Helping Others (daily): 11.97
Methodology
This study uses data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American Time Use Survey, extracted from IPUMS, over the most recent available four-year period. For each state, SmartAsset calculated the average daily minutes residents spent socializing, volunteering, and helping people outside the household. Those three measures were then equally weighted and summed to produce a total time value used to rank the states. Source data providers are not affiliated with, and do not endorse or sponsor, this study or its findings.
Citation: Sarah M. Flood, Liana C. Sayer, Daniel Backman and Annie Chen. American Time Use Survey Data Extract Builder: Version 3.3 dataset. College Park, MD: University of Maryland and Minneapolis, MN: IPUMS, 2025. https://doi.org/10.18128/D060.V3.3
This story was produced by SmartAsset and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
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One man’s bad day led to a legacy of love from the ‘Kissing Tree’ for the whole Victoria community
Love grows in British Columbia from a bad day in New York.
There is a spot dedicated to love in Victoria, British Columbia. In it, a billowing tree grows from a woman’s yard into the sidewalk with an arch-like opening. For decades, couples have shared sweet moments under the shady green privacy of the “Kissing Tree.” Not only that, but children have been making wishes and new parents bring their babies to enjoy the quiet tranquility under the tree. Oddly enough, though, the creation of the Kissing Tree wouldn’t have happened if not for a violent riot.
The story of Victoria’s Kissing Tree actually starts in New York City. In 1972, Bronx native Brian O’Reilly got his car stuck in the middle of a crowd waiting for a Rolling Stones concert. A riot broke out, forcing O’Reilly to protect himself with the only thing he had in his car: a tape recorder.
“I wasn’t recording on purpose,” O’Reilly explained to CTV News. “I just had the microphone in my hand, and I had my arm up like this to defend myself and I was asking why he was hitting me.”
Moving toward love
O’Reilly was so upset at the encounter that he moved away from the United States to settle in British Columbia. That was where he met and befriended Bonnie. Over the years, the two became close. Then, Brian made his move.
“He said, ‘I don’t want to date you. I want to marry you,’” Bonnie recalled to CTV News. “It felt amazing and wonderful because I had fallen in love with him.”
They embraced under what is now known as the Kissing Tree.
That one bad day in New York turned into 38 years of marriage in Victoria. While Brian has passed away, Bonnie has kept the tree the two of them enjoyed kissing under ready and available to all.
“If you can come here and have an ‘aha!’ moment, isn’t that wonderful? Wouldn’t you like to do that for everyone?” Bonnie said.
Screenshot The legacy of the Kissing Tree
Over the last few decades, the Kissing Tree’s branches have created a natural arch from Bonnie’s yard over the sidewalk. After seeing several couples make a stop to kiss under the privacy of nature, Bonnie hung some lights under the tree to create a more intimate, cozier space.
Thanks to the O’Reillys, couples have gotten engaged under the tree. Many resident couples have spent years making it a point to kiss under the tree whenever they pass through. That love has extended to children whispering wishes to the tree’s trunk. Pet lovers and new parents also have a nice quiet place for their dogs and babies to enjoy the shade.
Other ‘Kissing Trees’ in North America
There are other legendary “Kissing Trees” throughout North America, labeled as such for different reasons. In San Marcos, Texas, a large oak was dubbed “The Kissing Tree” after Sam Houston kissed the cheeks of the women who stitched him the state flag as a gift when he was running for governor.
The Kissing Trees/Love Trees of St. Augustine, Florida have a legend of their own. These trees are typically an oak and a palm tree that grow intertwined together, symbolizing connection. Legend has it that if you were to kiss under one of these trees, your love will last forever.
Whether it is imprinting magic onto a landmark or not, it is great to see how something as simple as a tree can connect people across time.
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One man’s bad day led to a legacy of love from the ‘Kissing Tree’ for the whole Victoria community
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