Make a Nice Day

On a daily basis, I tend to interact with a a fair number of people. As a stay-at-home mom, I talk to a lot of grocery clerks, dry cleaners, car wash employees, etc. For some reason, today seems to be a particularly nice day for dealing with the various people in my path.

My day started with the mammogram technician. She was kind, gentle and reassuring. This is my least favorite appointment of the year, but she somehow made it a little better. If she can get me a clean mammography, I'll like her even more. The grocery store service clerk was also really nice, even though I had no clue how to purchase a lottery ticket. (Hey, it's $350 million--worth a try, don't you think?!) The checkout clerk was equally nice, as was the woman at the dry cleaners. All of these people smiled, shared a story and told me to have a nice day.

And, in fact, the sum total of all of these nice people was the start of a very nice day for me. As I pulled my car into the garage, I was feeling pretty good about things, for no particular reason. I have to admit to being a little superstitious that everyone's being nice because something bad is coming, but I'm hoping it's just my tendency toward the glass-half-empty perspective.

What strikes me about this is that it took very little for these people to make me feel pretty great about life in general. Imagine what would happen if we all did this a little bit every day.

On a corner near my home, there's a woman that epitomizes this philosophy. She's a crossing guard and besides safely escorting children across a busy intersection, she also makes a point to wave at every car that passes by. The first time I saw her, I thought she was nuts, perhaps a little "off," if you know what I mean. But then I saw her dogged determination to smile, wave and shout "Have a nice day!" even in sub-zero temperatures and I was really touched. It's impossible to pass her and not smile. Even a car full of teenage boys on their way to school is not immune to her charms. Her actions are simple but far-reaching. She's my hero.

In today's world, we have heroes that come in many sizes. Some of their actions are headline-worthy and receive great publicity. Others, like our crossing guard, the mammogram technician and the grocery store clerk are small and mostly overlooked. And yet, they touch people. With packed schedules and deadlines and traffic and stress, it's sometimes difficult to have a nice day. We may not all be able to make headlines, but perhaps we can all make somebody's day a little bit better with a smile. It's worth a try, don't you think?