Be the One Who Smiles.

A few years ago I was spending time with a friend, and he mentioned he was becoming aware of some things as he was getting older.

He feels like everything becomes harder and more is expected of him; things just aren’t fun anymore.

I explained that he’s just very aware of the general way of how things go for most people and what they expect, but that he can choose to do things differently.

As we went about our day, I noticed that he would often smile and say hi to many people, so much so that I thought he knew most of them. Many of them smiled back, but most acted like they didn’t see him.

Towards the end of the night his face lit up, and he said hi to this lady, and she just walked on.

I asked him if he knew her, he said, nope I know very few of the people I say, "hello" too. I just told myself when I was little that I was going to smile. I see so many miserable looking people, and I don’t want to be like that!

What he said was so beautiful and reminded me that I also felt the same way when I was younger.

I told myself that I’d be the one who would laugh, smile, uplift and perhaps be the only light that someone saw that day.

I realized at that moment that I had gotten off track from what I intended.

Being so aware of energies; I allowed others' moods to dictate to me when I’d say hi and how often I'd smile.

Rather than beat up on myself for all the years, I could have been smiling and saying hello, I decided I will start doing that more often now.

It can be easy to let life get you down and can feel intimidating to approach someone with a megawatt smile when they look grumpy and uninviting. But, now is a very good time to become aware of how often you allow your expectation of others' moods to control and dictate what you will do.

Take your power back and spread the joy!

Be happy and find things to appreciate, even if nobody else around you seems to be  choosing that.

Have a fantastic week full of smiles and laughter :-)