A Sinner's Lent Day 9: When You're Smiling...

The whole world smiles at you, right?!

It turns out, not so much.

I’m a pretty pleasant person by nature. I smile at random people when I pass them on the street, people at the store, all old people, most kids…I just smile a lot.

Why not, right? Well, perhaps I should not treat this smiling notion as though it is some well-known rule, because occasionally my warm smiles are met with blank stares.

I decided to take this smiling thing to a new level during Lent. Extreme smiling, you could say.

I figured, if I smile at people who I don’t know, what would happen if I smiled at people who I know don’t like me?

I come into contact with lots of people who I know aren’t big fans of me. Through my previous job, through my current job, through my boyfriend (ex wives tend to hate new girlfriends, just saying)….so I thought HECK, I will just smile at them all.

So I did.  The ex wife snarled back at me. The man I see regularly in meetings gave me a shocked look and refused to make eye contact with me for the rest of the meeting.

Just tonight, I saw this woman I knew from my old job who didn’t like me so much, I smiled at her.  She looked her response was a mix of disgust and pain.

So, suffice to say that my smiling plan is not instantly making my detractors like me.

However, it makes me feel...nice. And I like feeling nice. I also like seeing the hilarious reactions I get.