Why You Should Smile at Strangers
They might smile back and a shared smile is a precious moment.
I had a pleasing revelation earlier today — there weren’t enough fingers on my hands to count the number of people who I shared a meaningful smile with when I was out doing my weekly quarantine grocery shopping. That means that I shared a smile with over ten people which, on a normal day in my hometown of Carlisle in England, would make me more than slightly paranoid that I had left the house without wiping toothpaste from my mouth.
It feels weirdly ironic that I am currently seeing and interacting with fewer people than I have done for most of my adult life due to this pandemic, yet I am connecting with more people than ever in a meaningful and authentic way through the simple act of sharing a smile.
A long time hobby of mine is smiling at strangers in the hope that they return the favor and a meaningful moment is shared, it now seems that everyone else in my town has joined me in my pass time. It’s a heart-warming feeling and it’s giving me the sense that I’m part of a community, which is something that I didn’t have before.
My sense of joy at this recent change is tempered with sadness — did it really have to take a pandemic for my local community to start smiling? It makes me wonder if this sense of…
