the smile project

the other day, after listening to a fantastic dharma talk by thich nhat hanh about the wonders of smiling, especially in the morning, i was in quite a smiley mood as i walked to the train station. and as i walked, meditating and smiling, i began to realize how alarmingly rare it is for me to see someone smiling while i’m on my commute. as i examined how freakish i felt smiling, i realized how rare it is to see people smiling in the stations, on the trains, on the streets, etc. of course, at work, i am saved by the laughter of children and some great co-workers. but on my commute and general comings-and-goings, it’s pretty rare.

so, upon noticing this, i decided to count. during my 1 hour commute to work that morning, i counted smiles. and the grand total? 4. not at me, just in general. 4 smiles. between the crowded trains and busy stations (including 1 transfer) i must have passed hundreds of people, without exaggeration. (and with my height, i have a pretty good range of vision in this country …). and i was able to count the numbers of smiles i saw on one hand. now, i know that most people commute by themselves and don’t necessarily have a lot of things to chuckle about. however, a simple smile is different. and compared to most of the places i’ve lived, this is really a change. even in chicago, strangers at least smile to each other when they both witness something crazy happening (which happens more often than not on the El). and of course, i’m not trying to say that all people here are unhappy or anything of the sort. i’m simply stating my findings.

at first, i was damn near despondent about this. i was honestly pretty upset. although there were probably some other factors playing in to it, the whole thing actually brought me to the brink of tears. it may sound a bit dramatic, but coming from chicago or especially sri lanka, where people (myself included, check pictures on fb for proof) seemed to be constantly smiling and/or laughing, this is a hard environment to adjust to. i truly believe it has dramatically affected my mood on a number of occasions, and so i’m quite happy that i realized it. but again, i was unsure what to “do about it,” if anything.

tonight, while i took an exhilirating bike ride at sunset, i found myself not only smiling but laughing uncontrollably. it was so beautiful that i simply couldn’t resist. and i started purposefully smiling at the few people i passed. some didn’t look at me (the norm, i’d say), some gave me a double-take like i was crazy (one guy actually tripped over his dog and almost caused us to crash! ha!), and some actually smiled back.

and during this ride, i decided that from now on, when i’m commuting (a solid 12 hours a week, at least), i am going to intentionally smile at people and try to get them to smile back at me. i’ll try not to be too creepy, but i’m going to actively go after smiles. luckily, unlike some places i’ve lived where doing this might very well get me slapped or hit on, i’m pretty sure the worst i’d get here is a dirty look—which i might actually prefer to being ignored.

so, this is my new project: the smile project. i don’t expect to change the world, but i figure that if i can make even one person smile, even if it’s after they walk away and are thinking, “i think that tall white girl might be crazy,” it’s worth it.

who’s with me?