No. 7 - Mike Sarshad

Dear Mike,

I can still remember the first day I moved into the apartment and I saw you. Who knew that stranger would be one of the coolest people I will ever meet. Thank you for letting me study with you during our first weekend of business school. I remember being unmotivated and you kept me company as we complete our school work. Thank you for all the great memories we shared and I hope we’ll some in the future. I am extremely sad that you are leaving to go back to California, but I hope you’d remember the fun times being apartment neighbors on the 6^th floor.

With love,

Mandy

No. 6 - Brian Pan

Dear Brian,

You are the kindest and nicest person I have ever met. I am so glad we became friends. Although you moved away our second year, it was great when you lived across the hall. We had some fun memories with Mike, Diana and Martin. Thank you  for the two hours you spent revising my resume. I know it was a tough task, but you made it fantastic. It was super fun bumping into you on the Path Train; I hope we can chat like that again sometime in the future.

With love,

Mandy

No. 5 - Diana Bodine

Dear Diana,

I do not know what I would have done without you during graduate school. Thank you for being an awesome roommate and a supportive friend. I will always remember our girl talks with popcorn and trashy television shows. I do not think I would have gotten through business school as smoothly as I did without your support and companionship. I hope after all this is over, we remain friends.

With love,

Mandy

No. 4 - Godfather, Alan Brodman

Dear My Awesome Godfather,

You have watched me grow up for almost nine years. There aren’t enough thank yous in the world to repay everything that you have done for me. First off, thank you for teaching me world history, even though I barely remember any of it. Thank you for always trying to find ways to make me happy when I am sad. You have always been there for moral support and  been proud of my accomplishments. Although you are not my parent, you guard me as one of your own. Thank you for loving me and letting me love you in return.

With love,
Mandy

No. 3 - Brother, Sherman Szeto

Dear Sherman,

Although it took us nearly two decades to finally get along, I am glad our relationship has developed into what it is today. We have a long way to go, but I am sure it will only grow strongly from here. I appreciate your understanding of the difficulties we go through with our parents. Thank you for reminding me to treat our parents better every now and then. And lastly, thank you for being my little brother. I know you are not little anymore, but you will always be to me.

With love,
Your sister.

No. 2 - Daddy

Dear Daddy,

Thank you for all your efforts in educating me through the years. I may have dreaded those weekends when I had to sit and do math problems, but I am sure I would not have been as advanced as I was in school without. Thank you for taking your Saturdays to take me to Chinese school for 10 years; I am sure it will come in handy someday. Thank you for supporting my engineering degree and the additional three semesters for my Masters in business. Thank you for being patient with Mommy as I try to find a job in this unfortunate economy.

With love,
Mandy

No. 1 - Mommy

Dear Mommy,

It has been more than 24 years and I am sure I do not thank you enough for everything you do. It is not the little things that you do for me, but the big things. Thank you for being supportive all these years; you have always been supporting my interests in crafts, academic achievements and goals for the future. Thank you for being open and learning to accept the decisions I have made for myself and my life. I am forever grateful to be blessed with a mother like you. I hope someday I will be a mother to my children, if not better than, at least as amazing as you are to Sherman and me.

Love,

Mandy

The Origin

On April 8, 2012, I decided to start Mandy’s Thank You Project. I was flipping through Pinterest and found an article on 10 Tricks to be Happier. Mind there is no number three on the list, but I can do without that one. The first one stuck with me the most: Express your Gratitude. An interesting point was that I did not need to send the thank you letter to the person it is written for. The mere action of writing a thank you was supposed to be beneficial. After not thinking too much more about it, I proceeded through the rest of my evening. In the middle of showering, something hit me. How awesome would it be to write lots of thank you notes and actually send them and blog about it? As fast as I could, I finished washing up and ran to my computer to acquire a decent blog url. There were a few called 'project thank you' or 'the thank you project', but nothing immediate were of personal letters. They were organizations that sent letters to soldiers and other various charities. This is not meant to be a charity blog. I am doing this for me and to send a small thank you to whoever has made an impact on my life for the last twenty four years and the years to come. I have set an official goal of 1000 thank yous. For those reading may find this outrageous, but like the quote “Dream big, or don’t dream at all”. There is no time frame I have to finish this by. Yes, this may end up being one of those quick projects thrown to the side after a few months or even weeks. But I am determined to see this through; this is my first step on a quest and/or journey to seek and acknowledge a thousand people that had an impact, big or small, on my life. I will be hand-making and writing all the cards I intend to send. On this blog, I intend to share the card and the message. I am not sure where this will go, but I know I want to start expressing my gratitude and hopefully bring a little more happiness into other people’s lives as well.

Disclaimer* There is no meaning of importance to the order of the people as the thank you cards are written.