I had a very pleasant surprise this week indeed. I was attending a conference in Boston, and happened to sit beside a woman from Texas during one of the sessions. “Everyone’s so nice here,” she said at the break in the lecture.
“Huh?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly. We in New England are known for being cold and surly, by comparison with the rest of the country … certainly not “nice.”
“Oh, yes,” she affirmed. “Everyone’s been kind, has gone out of their way to help me. Nicer than they are at home. People in the street, when I ask for directions …”
More amazing still. It snowed recently, it’s freezing cold, and sidewalks in Boston are iced over. And in that climate people are taking time to be helpful?
It gave me hope, that encounter. That maybe people are nicer than the news would have us believe. That we all still have the capacity to be kind to a stranger. And I found myself inspired by it, smiling more at people throughout the day, stopping to give money to a shivering homeless man on my way to the subway, not getting quite as upset as I normally might when I realized I’d lost one of my gloves at the conference.
It’s contagious, this “nice” thing. Wouldn’t it be great if we could all catch a little?
– Jeannette Cézanne
http://www.JeannetteCezanne.com
Posted by: Something completely different, Opening the heart, Happiness, Being Peace — jcezanne
|
