Milestones

Milestone messages are the ones people keep. A new job, a graduation, a first home or a retirement marks a change someone worked toward, often for years, and a message that acknowledges the work rather than just the result is the one that gets screenshotted.

This section covers graduations, new jobs, promotions, engagements, housewarmings, retirements and farewells. Each page is sorted by relationship and by tone, so a message to a colleague and a message to your closest friend do not end up sounding the same.

One thing worth avoiding across all of them: the pressure line. Telling a new graduate that the real world starts now, or a retiree that the best is yet to come, is meant kindly but lands on someone who is often anxious about exactly that. A message that acknowledges what the person already did tends to be received far better than one that points at what comes next.