Yesterday was busy. It was one of those days when one thing adds to the other and you just keep going and going.  When the afternoon rolled around, I found myself at the Wholefoods check-out counter feeling quite tense and worked up: There were still so many things on my to-do list and time was running out.

It wasn’t until the man in the line behind me cracked a joke that I realized how serious I had gotten throughout the day. I turned around and he greeted me with a big smile. I took a deep breath and relaxed. It felt so good. All of a sudden the world turned a bit brighter and ahh, it was good to be alive.

I went on to run my errands and to receiving more smiles from strangers. When I returned home I was in a much happier mood and finishing off my to-do list was no big deal. Actually, packing bags for our ski trip and taking care of my sick daughter was kind of fun and it dawned on me what a big impact a few smiles and some human attention can have.

Just like soaking in a little bit of sun everyday will boost your vitamin D level, giving and receiving genuine smiles and friendly attention can boost your happiness level. I’ll remember this today and hopefully it will brighten someone’s day just like that man did for me in the check-out line at Wholefood.

As always, thank you for reading.

Karin

***

Photo Source: Lel4nd via Flickr under a Creative Commons License