You are in one of your regular morning walks; you cross a lot of people on the park that are walking, jogging or doing some or the other form of exercises. Your eyes meet the eyes that of a stranger and the stranger smiles. It instantly brings a smile on your face in return and lightens up your mood. It makes you feel good for no particular reason.

Once back home, you get ready for work. During the entire process you have a smile on your face, a song playing on your lips and you are in a good mood just because of that sweet gesture from the stranger.

You reach your office and take the elevator to your floor. There is one more person in the lift whom you may not know. Because of your elated mood, you greet the person with a little cheerful hello. You can feel the entire composer of the person change as he/she greets you back. You have now shared that happiness within you with this other stranger and helped elate his/her mood as well. Your happiness doesn’t reduce, instead it adds on seeing the other person reflect your greeting. Happiness is contagious in that way.

What the first stranger did in the park was just a small sweet gesture, but he unknowingly helped to create a chain of sweet gestures in return, and thus elating the mood of several others. Had he not bothered to smile back at you, your day could have been just the same as the rest of your days.

You don’t know what the other person is going through. Greeting a person with respect, whether we know them or they are a complete stranger to us, won’t harm us, but if it helps the other person feel even 1% better, it is worth it, isn’t it? A simple hello, a sweet smile, a compliment for no matter how small a thing it may be for, doesn’t cost us anything, but the effect it creates in return is just priceless.

Recently, there was something strange that I experienced. Even now, when I think about it, I can’t help but laugh at myself but simultaneously, the funny thing is, that the memory doesn’t leave me bitter; it actually leaves me feeling a little good about myself(hehe). So, here is what really took place —

…

I was sitting in a metro, headed to meet a friend. I knew my destination but, since I was travelling for the first time there by the metro, I wasn’t sure which platform would drop me nearest to my destination. I was confused between 3 stops, and wanting to confirm the same from someone who may know, I looked around.

It was around 7 P.M. in the evening (as I was heading there after my office) and the metro was pretty empty. Among the few people around me, I saw a boy (who must be in his late twenties) looking keenly at me. He had a friendly and pretty face and thankfully, seemed to be someone who may know the answer to my confusion. After debating with myself for some time, whether to ask him or not, I decided to give it a try.

Just as I was about to open my mouth, he spoke up — as if reading my mind, and enquired if everything was fine. I finally blurted what was bothering me and he let out a small chuckle. Looking at my puzzled expression, he explained that he had been observing me for quite some time as I was staring at the map with all the metro stops, that was put up at the metro gates, and he had guess exactly what was bothering me. To my delight, he said that he was also headed that way and he would be happy to guide me to my destination. I heaved a sigh of relief and accepted his offer, without wasting another second.

As we got down the metro, he told me that we would have to walk a little to reach my destination. As, it was a public place, the weather was good and there were a lot of other pedestrians around, I didn’t mind it and saw no harm in trusting him. So, we started walking and chatting, getting to know each other a little. He was good looking and witty, so the walk was quite entertaining for me. Soon, we reached a spot where he stopped, and said this was where we would have to part. We were just outside the mall where I was to meet my friend. He said he had to go further ahead and so we bid each other our goodbyes. I thanked him for accompanying me till my destination and for making the little time that we did spend together, worthwhile.

Though, I was a little late at meeting my friend, it was fine as we had enough time, and it being a Friday night, I was in no hurry to head home. We had a great time and once we had finished our dinner, we decided to head back to our respective places.

As, she was also heading back by the metro like me, we started walking towards it together. To my surprise, I found her going towards the opposite direction, compared to the direction I had come from. I thought she must just be confused and told him that the metro was on the other side. She looked puzzled. She then directed my gaze to the flight of stairs that directly connected the metro station to the mall. She asked me why I would even want to walk all the way to the other direction.

I was spellbound for a moment, after which I narrated all that had happened as I was headed to meet her. After I finished narrating my story, she started to laugh at me mercilessly, that how could I be so naive and trust a complete stranger. I tried to defend myself, but it was in vain. Finally, when she was done making fun of me, we got into our respective metros to our way back home.

On the way back as I pondered on the events of the day, I was surprised to find that I didn’t feel anger towards the stranger for misguiding me and for making me walk so much unnecessarily. I actually had this little smile on my lips, thinking that he must have found me interesting enough to have wanted to spend some time with me. The thought actually made me blush a little, and to some level, I was actually glad this happened. It gave a little boost to my self-esteem. I had found him good-looking, and seeing that he must have felt the same, oddly felt good. What he did was wrong to some level, but why he must have done that, simply made me feel good. After all, who doesn’t like a fan moment!

…

We don’t know what others intentions are for doing anything that they do, but, if believing their intentions are for something good gives us happiness, I feel it just makes our life easier. I really don’t know what his intentions to lie to me were — it could be that he really didn’t know about the direct metro to the mall or could be anything else. Whatever it was, I cannot change that now. So, why not believe that he had a little crush on me and wanted to spend some time with me to get to know me a little, thus making myself feel delighted of the entire episode. This way, whenever I am reminded of that few minutes of my life, I feel happiness within me and I don’t feel the need to blame myself for maybe being a little naive.

We should try and simplify our life and try to look at the positive in everything. We know how hard life can be; knowing this, if there is even a tiny bit we may play to make a few seconds of somebody else’s life happier, we should grab the opportunity. It may not make much of a difference for us, but we never know how that small act may affect the other person. For that someone, it may be a moment of happiness to cherish forever.

A quote which I really relate to goes as follows: