I’ve been having a thought or 2 running around in my head the last, well for along time. Picture your normal day of running around, you go to the store, check out lady/guy…”Hey how are you?” Not even looking up from the line of groceries, “I’m good thank you.”  You go to the gas station and actually have to go in to pay with cash (card machine outside doesn’t work) Attendant - “Hey how are you?”  Me - “Fine thanks, you?”  Attendant - “I’m good, that’ll be 72 million dollars.”  Everywhere we go it’s “hi, how are you” And the correct response is always I’m good or some variation of that.

I get why we do that, it’s our society of rushing around, not really caring, not really stopping to see or hear.  Now before you shake your head about another blondy head’s thoughts, yes I know that in the food store/gas station/drive through window, there’s not time to hear someone’s life story, I do get that. I just think sometimes that since it’s such a normal response “I’m Good” that’s what we expect to hear and no one ever goes beyond that…lol sometimes people start talking before the “I’m Good” comes out of my mouth…yeah you’re really caring how that person is doing eh?

So I put this to the test (and am going to continue doing so as it’s fun). Last week, going to the food store, get to the cashier, “Hey how are you?” “I’m good. Will that be paper or plastic?” I looked her in the eye (this was a girl, very pretty, just out of high school, I’d venture)…”Plastic is fine and how are you REALLY?”  She totally startled out of whatever thoughts were going through her head and really looked at me for the first time…yes it was a look of “okay, and who the heck are you?” But then she smiled and in that 20 second period (she was a fast bagger) I learned that she wasn’t so fine, had been having a hard day and that my smile and “oh I hope it’ll get better, here’s a chocolate bar on me” made her feel better. (Yes I did buy her a chocolate bar, our food store sells German chocolate, which I feel everyone in the world needs to try at least once, puts Hershey’s to shame).  But the point is, I made someone’s day by really caring, really asking and really seeing.  And that I must say made my day so much better as well! 

 Let’s see what trouble I can get into today!!!