Showing gratitude by “passing the paper” Published Jan. 8, 2025 By Lt. Col. Bradlee Seehawer 321st Air Mobility Operations Squadron TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- Members of the 321st Air Mobility Operation Squadron begun the year with positivity, circulating sheets of paper around the office. Each piece of paper has the name of a squadron member on top. As the paper gets passed around, Masterminds write a positive memory, affirmation, thought or observation. After two weeks of “passing the paper,” the resulting list of positives is delivered to its namesake, full of positive interactions, memories, and thoughts from the squadron. The project is the brainchild of Capt. Christina Laporte, 321 AMOS Operations Flight Commander, who developed the program as captain of her high school track team and brought it with her once joining the Air Force as a healthcare administrator. Staff Sgt. McKailen Santillana, operations flight noncommissioned officer in-charge and Mastermind booster club president, helped put the plan into action. “A favorite book of mine is Becoming Better Grownups by Brad Montague,” Laporte said. “Part of being a better grownup is letting people know they are enough. We go through motions daily, but don’t always get to see how the decisions we make, whether a conversation, a choice, or a helping hand, wow others. Taking the time to remind others they are enough by recalling even the smallest moment or memory can mean something huge to someone else.” “The Masterminds are very familiar with the social benefits of gratitude. Some members of the squadron are Master Resilience Trainers and teach it as the first lesson of Air Force Resiliency during the First Term Enlisted Course. It’s one of the lessons that has ensuring impact to Air Force members of all ranks and ages.” Laporte said. Gratitude can be defined as a sense of wonder, thankfulness, and appreciation for life. It can be generated by gifts – thoughts, acts or physical goods – that come as a result of perceived genuine effort from the giver and are considered valuable or fulfilling needs of the recipient. Gratitude plays an important role in philosophy and religion; it helps us counteract our inherent negativity bias, our biological predisposition towards paying more attention to the negative things in our lives. Studies have shown that gratitude is associated with benefits to subjective well-being, increased resilience to trauma and benefits to social relationships. Individuals vary in how grateful they tend to be, and those who are more grateful show enhanced psychological well-being. Gratitude can be difficult to find sometimes, but members of the squadron have been able to foster a grateful attitude and outlook by looking within the unit and leaning on each other. “I wanted our squadron to participate in this initiative because I have lost friends to negative thoughts and harmful self-reflection," Santillana. “I hope that by the end of Pass the Paper everyone can know that they are loved by their military family and that they have a positive impact on someone else’s life even if they don’t realize it!”