PLEASANTLY surprised. That’s something all of us would like to be sometimes.

When we receive a gift from someone during Christmas or for our birthday, we open the gift with some anticipation. Will it be the item we were hoping for?

Or something we never expected? Will we be pleasantly surprised?

In the same way, when an employee is called into the boss’ room to receive his increment letter, his heart pounds with excitement. How much increment will he get?

He wonders whether he will be pleasantly surprised. When an announcement is made at the year end about bonuses, everyone holds their breath.

Will it be one or two months? Will they be pleasantly surprised?

When a boss gives an instruction or direction to his employees on certain work to be done in a certain way by a certain deadline, the boss wonders.

Will the employee do a much better job than expected? Will he complete the task ahead of deadlines? Will the boss be pleasantly surprised?

And the list goes on. When we walk into a restaurant that we have never been to before and order from their menu, we wonder when our order arrives, whether we will be pleasantly surprised. When we make a call to a service provider, instead of putting us on hold or making us listen to an answering machine, we wonder. Will we hear what we want to hear? Will we be pleasantly surprised?

Most of us want in some way or another, to be pleasantly surprised. There is something just so euphoric about being pleasantly surprised. But what about giving out pleasant surprises – to be the party who pleasantly surprises someone else? For example, when we see a colleague who carries a very worn-out laptop bag, and then we buy him a new one and put it on his desk.

Imagine the look on his face when he comes to work the next day and sees that bag on the table. Or a neighbour who could not come home in time to take in the clothes when it rains. When she returns from work, she finds someone has helped to take in the clothes for her. The examples are endless.

Ultimately, we will discover that it is good to be pleasantly surprised, but it is better to be able to pleasantly surprise someone else.

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