The Little Things

There is something that constantly amazes me -- the power of a smile.

Time and time again I find myself in this situation:

Someone is walking towards me with a blank, angry, sad, critical, aggressive, defensive, or just plain negative look. However, as soon as I make eye contact and smile at them, that whole persona disappears. It's truly incredible. All of a sudden, that image melts away and a much softer and more positive one emerges. They smile back, or nod their head or say hello. It's really as if I just saw two completely different people.

This happens ALL THE TIME. Today I was biking and I encountered plenty of such people. Whether they were tired, critically analyzing my level of fitness and seriousness, annoyed that I wasn't far enough to the right, annoyed that I was going too slow, wrongly assuming that I was trying to show them up with my flexibility (flexible people have a time and place to stretch too!), an older person criticizing the youth...any negative emotion that can arise in the park.

That look EVAPORATED within milliseconds as soon as I flashed my pearly whites -- and I mean NANOseconds. I will end my rant but I find this truly remarkable and heart-warming. It makes me very very happy (and generates even more smiles).