Spread the Love

Today my mom came to book club and in the context of our conversation announced that Frank the checker at the grocery store told her she'd been looking pretty hot lately.  Now Frank is a very nice man, and he knows who all of us are that frequent this particular Savemart.  The fact that he took the time to let her know he thought she looked great got me thinking.

I have lots of things I don't like so much about myself and the way I look.  As women, I think it's fair to say, that we all do.   Now I won't go on to list all of them, because I am hoping you might just overlook these flaws if I don't draw attention to them, but for the purposes of this post I will tell you two.  One of them is my smile. Again, I won't go into why I don't like it, but I just don't.  Recently I  have been stopped by 3 different strangers telling me what a great smile I have.  Not gonna share the details there either except to say that each of them had a little more to say about it, and it was very sincere.  Each time, it really surprised me and caught me off guard.  I don't like my smile any better now than I did then, but I can say, that it totally made my day!  For a complete stranger to give a genuine compliment, requires them to step out of their comfort zone a little.

While out with good friends a few weeks ago, the song Just The Way You Are, by Bruno Mars came on.  (It's the same one that plays when you open my blog right now if your sound is turned on)  There is a line in the song that says "Her laugh, she hates, but I think it's so sexy".  My friend turned and said, "Jen I always think about you when I hear that line.  I know you hate your laugh, but I just love it!"  This compliment from a sweet friend had the same effect as the ones from the complete strangers.  Totally made my day!

How often do we see someone who looks great, who handles a situation well, or has a generous nature, and we just think about it to ourselves or maybe mention it to a friend.  How often do we stop and actually deliver the compliment?  What stops us from doing that?  How great does it feel to be on the receiving end?  How much better still, to realize that you just totally brightened someone else's day?

Just so that we are clear here, I am in no way trying to solicit compliments here.  I'm not into that. In fact, I even have a tendency to withhold a compliment from someone who is fishing for one, just because it rubs me the wrong way.  Totally immature of me I know, I'll work on that.  In the mean time, what I am suggesting is that we all step out of our comfort zones and start telling those around us how great they are, whether we know them or not.  Make somebody's day, spread the love!!!