Smiles are free!

Or should be. A smile doesn’t have to be earned. Oh yes, some people make you work for them, but really? Why?

When a random smile can change someone’s day, why would anyone be stingy?

A few days ago, I happened to be sitting in a hospital’s physiotherapy gym, where several people were going through the exercises assigned to them, and one lady was learning how to take hard, hard steps with a walker. I was watching her progress and silently rooting for her–when I was supposed to be chatting with someone else–and when the lady with the walker looked up, I smiled in encouragement.

What had been a dour, or possibly sad face to that point suddenly lit up with a beautiful smile. She’s a stranger, one I’ll never likely see again, but my smile moved her, and hers moved me, and it cost neither one of us anything.

And it lasts. I’m smiling…