An act of humanity

"Smile more." - it's something your mom tells you a lot, but you rarely hear it from a complete stranger.

"My day has been going quite bad." - that's what I would have thought I would say at the end of the day. I was tired, sad, angry, stressed and frustrated. And mostly just very tired. So tired of being sad and so tired of the drama that's currently happening in my life.

Years ago I started believing in Murphy's laws - in particular one: "If something can go wrong, it 'emeffing' will." - basically everything since I came back to London has gone wrong at some point.

But today I have experienced 1st hand how a little thing can change the outlook on your whole day. We all know the guys, who hand out the Evening Standard and this one at Hendon Central changed my day today.

Every day I tell him: "No, thank you." and barely smile (or just very little). Today I took the paper, thanked him and smiled at him (even though my day was shit). He smiled back and said: "You have a lovely smile. You should smile more."

To him this simple act of humanity and kindness probably didn't mean anything, but to me it was a 180 turn.

Each day we learn something new. Whether it's somthing during the lecture; or someone's name; or when to not get on tube (my fellow rush hour travelers know what I'm saying). Today I learned that humanity is still a thing in this cold world and this revelation to me was very comforting. I learned that a simple smile can change a person's day. I learned that being tired and sad is okay as long as at the end of the day I can tell myself: "I made it through one more tough day. Tomorrow is going to be better."

So today I want to thank you, Evening-Standard-guy-a-Hendon-Central-tube-station.

Thank you, stranger.^^

-Misha