the power to improve someone’s day
A couple of housekeeping items before I get into today’s post: first, yesterday I weighed in at 179.4, yay me! Just a few pounds to go… I ‘ve been sitting on this idea for a while, until I felt like I didn’t have a lot going on to talk about, but simething happened recently that I thought I should go ahead and write this now.
I came to the realization some time ago that I have the ability to change someone’s day for the better, or for the worse. Actually, anyone can do this and often does, without necessarily being aware of it. It can be a brief smile, a kind word, letting someone into traffic, there are too many to list them all. One of my favorite, since I rarely go to them, is to leave a big tip at a restaurant, I like to think that unexpected money showing up improves the person’s day, and that it gets passed on to to others I may never see or meet.
I chose this topic now because of the example I’m about to give you. There’s a health food store I go to pretty much every saturday for bottled water and a few other things I can’t get at the local grocery stores, or even the ’super’ stores. About two months ago or so, a new cashier started working there. Not too unusual, but since I’m only in once a week, it’s fairly easy to remember who normally works when I go, since I’m pretty regular about when I go. So when I went in this past Saturday, she’s wearing a light brown corduroy jacket, and matching pink blouse and skirt with white trim printed with a small floral design, and some sort of small pattern on the main fabric that I didn’t catch.
I didn’t think a lot of it at the time, so I got my stuff and got in line as usual. We made small talk as usual, I’ve chatted with most of the people in this particular store, so they’re familiar with my face, even if they don’t know me well. Back to the point. So, I finish paying for my stuff, and I’m picking up my stuff to go, and the last thing I said in passing was, you look nice today. Just put it out there casually in a kind of hey, how’s it going, you like nice today fashion. I turned my head to look at her as I was going out of the store, and she had turned to watch me leave. When she saw me look back at her, she mouthed the words thank you to me - she had absolutely lit up over a simple compliment, for a moment she allowed her inner radiant beauty to come through. I think it was one of the most breathtaking things I’ve seen in a long time.
I have no intention of asking her out, I doubt she’s even as old as my daughter. I simply wanted to acknowledge that I thought another person looked nice on that particular day, and it just took me by surprise the amount of impact my words appeared to have. It made an impression on me, so I thought it was time to write this particular entry. It’s not how I envisioned this coming out, but I think it’s better now that what I had in mind. Thanks for stopping by.