SMILE FOR NO REASON

Standing in line at Starbucks this morning, I noticed a four-year-old little girl smile for no reason.  She was smiling up to a man in a suit. The little girls father, mixing cream into his coffee, turned and tried to get his daughter to follow him out. But there she stood, smiling up at the man in the suit. An unrelenting smile for no reason.

It’s not like the man in the suit looked funny or engaging her in impromptu game of peek-a-boo.  He wasn’t wearing a clown suit.  He didn’t have a funny face.  He was just a man in a suit.

Why was this little girl giving this man in the suit so much love?  The simple answer is children don’t need a reason to give or express love to someone.  They simply do it.  I know this because I am a father of two young children.

Noticing his daughter smiling up at the man in the suit, the father smiled, took his daughter’s hand and said, “Come on, baby…Daddy has to get to work.”  And off they went.  The man in the suit said, to nobody in particular, mind you, “well, that just made my day.”

Now…if that’s all it takes to make a day, why don’t we do this to each other more often?  Is it because we are so caught up in our status-updating world that we forget to remember what life is really about?  The life happening right in front of us in real time, providing moments where our day can be made by a simple smile?

Even though I had something to say about what I had just witnessed, I went back to my laptop to write because I too am on a schedule.  Each day I have race to sit down, be creative for a couple hours before scooping up my kids, dropping one off to pre-school and the other to the babysitter.

Watching the man in the suit continue to smile to himself as he waited for his coffee, I couldn’t take…I had to talk about what I had just experienced.

I walked over to the man in the suit and said, “you know…that is what it’s all about.  No matter how busy we are trying to get more, be more, close this deal, or close that deal, moments like that are what life is really about.  Those moments between others that make us smile.  Those moments that remind of what it feels like to love.”

The man in the suit smiled, shook my hand and said, “and moments like this where two strangers are talking about the importance of feeling more love in our lives.”

We owe it to ourselves, to our children, to everyone in our lives to smile for no reason.  When we smile…we feel better.  When we smile…we love easier.  When we smile…we are happier.  So, today…smile for no reason.