Tonight I’m home alone. A house of 6 girls absent, I’m here. Let go, relax. Blast your music and have a dance party in your house. Trust me, it feels amazing. I felt exhilarated, free, loud, obnoxious, crazy, and cheery. If feels so good to have even 30 minutes of complete freedom and time to just be yourself! It made me think of judgment and how although so many say, “I don’t judge other people,” it is human instinct not to. I wonder what life would be like if there was no judgment. When people saw the homeless man on the corner as not a failure or monster, but just another human going through a time of struggle. If the single 16 year old mother was looked at with compassion and sympathy, rather than disgust and intolerance. Everyone would be equal, free from comparisons and prejudices. It would be transformational. Great.
But you meet people every day right? In a coffee shop, on the street, in a store. Whether for one minute or for 10 years that person has had a time and place in your life. They inspire, outrage, encourage, laugh. How is your life impacted by those people? The people who you may never see again. I think about my life and the people I’ve met. How one woman I met in a long line in Starbucks had such a vibrant laugh that it was infectious. “Pop”, a man I was judgmental of: A poor African-American carrying a trash bag, with silver teeth and dred locks, on a city bus in San Francisco, with a smile from ear to ear that admired and applauded the mission work we were doing there, and love overflowing straight from his heart. A bad day, I was in the mall walking alone. Thinking about things, my face reflected my emotions, angry, lost, confused. Walking quickly, without noticing a man walking in the opposite direction, he simply said “smile” in an uplifting, cheery sort of way. I will never forget that moment. He brought me out of my self-centeredness and I thought, wow, I had no idea that I was living my fears and feelings. I had no idea how inapproachable I could be because of the way I thought. He inspired me to smile, to change my thought process to enjoy life with a smile on my face. Simply, smile. Mrs. Galyean, my second grade teacher, always smiled. She told us to “be yourself but be your best self.” Early on in my life I saw the importance of striving for your goals, dreaming, and living with the best intentions. Sadie, a 101 year old woman laying in the bed next to my grandmother, sick, but content in her life. She had such a bright outlook on life always trying to cheer everyone up and lighten the mood of the old folks home. When she was the one who was sick in a bed, she was the one who laughed.
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