Yesterday on my walk to class, I halted and awkwardly walked aimlessly in the opposite direction into the UNL flower garden to “hide” while other students walked ahead of me and back to this spot on the sidewalk to take this picture. (If you don’t know what I made the encounter weird, don’t worry, neither do I)
When I saw this sidewalk art, I was reminded of a surprising encounter this past weekend at the state fair. It was 7:00 a.m. and I was walking into the cattle barns on the way to photograph the show. I love taking pictures of livestock, but more than likely I was squinting from the morning sun and tired eyes. A middle aged man in the doorway stops me and exclaims “Hey! Thanks for smiling this morning. I really needed it. Don’t stop!” In turn, this put a smile (or even bigger one) on my face too.
2 humans, 1 simple action, and a great connection all in a matter of 30 seconds.
When we were in the world of Covid, smiles were what I missed most, and this proved exactly why. We never know how powerful something as simple as a smile could mean to someone’s day let alone when someone was last smiled at, unless we do it ourselves.
If you know me, you know that my one word since August 2020 has been “radiate”. To me, it means that we are always radiating energy, and we get the choice as to what kind of energy that is. I hope mine is like the sun: warm, bright, and full of live giving energy. I am wired to be instinctively positive, so this might be a little easier for me, but we are all wired to thrive off of human connection, so today connect. It’s as simple as a smile.