The power of a smile

[PalmtreeTelecom]

I'm reading a book I'm sure most of you have heard of, "How To Win Friends and Influence People" and one of the chapters is entitled "Smile".

It talks about the power of a smile. We live such busy lives, worried about our own problems, running to and back from work, dealing with a lot of things at once and we never stop to smile... not even to our own family!

Can you think of the LAST time you smiled from your heart, to someone in your familly? Not because they did or said something silly, but because you felt like it?

I'm going to tell you a story, this happened yesterday... I went to take my kids to their Art class and before we got there I stopped to get them some munchies and to fill up my tank. 

I'm there in line waiting to pay for my goodies and gas, and the man in front of me was talking to the clerk, but he never looked at him, he was staring outside, looking at the chewing gum display, playing with and arranging some cookie packs... anyway, he never even said thank you when the transaction was finished.

And there goes MY turn, the clerk says "good afternoon" but he barely glanced at me.. (he must be so used to people just ignoring him), I responded (with a happy smile on my face and looking at him straight in the eye...) "good afternoon, how are YOU today?"

I'm sure the guy thought he was being "punk'd", he looked at me with this amazed-happy face and said: "I'm good, thank you, how about you?"

- "Everything is great", I said, then he added,

- "you are taking a nice assortment of goodies here, huh?" I just responded,

- "yeah, so everyone finds something they like", he smiled back at me, gave me my change and goodies and then he said:

- "have a nice trip back home"

A minute or two... that was all it took, but I could feel how this man really needed some sort of interaction other than just the cold, serious, frowned, distracted faces and indifferent verbal communication he gets every day.

Try something different today, smile to someone just because, try to show you truly care about them. Would you like to live in a different world? A world filled with kindness? Start your own "kindness movement", start your own "a smile-a-day project". It could change someone's day... maybe EVEN their life!

:o)