When I was a child I did not notice the way my Mom interacted with others in the world. To me, she was just my Mom. But when I became an early-mid teen I found myself embarrassed in social situations because I felt my Mom was just too friendly. How is someone too friendly? Well my lovely Mom is the type of lady that loves name tags, she thinks they are incredibly helpful and that everyone should walk around with them. So when people are wearing name tags my charming Mom always capitalizes on it. At the grocery store, my much too friendly Mom would say to the vegetable stocker, “Hello Greg! How are you doing today?” with a pep in her step and obvious excitement in her voice.
Where does this story about my Mom lead? Well, I shall tell you! During my third year of school at UBC, I was walking down Main Mall and made eye contact with a complete stranger, and my reaction to this eye contact was to look away. All of a sudden I was completely embarrassed, what about that interaction made me feel the need to look away? Why was I not okay being someone who smiled when I made random eye contact? And if I smiled, what negative effects would this have on my life?
At that moment I decided to challenge myself. I would be friendly (not creepy, but friendly) to everyone I encountered in my life. I already felt like I was friendly to my friends, family, colleagues and teachers and all those people that you expect to be nice around, but how was I treating the people that most people don’t ask, “How are you doing today?” I realized that I often interact with a realm of people known as random strangers. So, these random strangers would start to receive the same amount of happiness and care from Olivia that everyone else did. This was the day that I felt okay to identify as a friendly person in the world.
Now I take the time to ask, “How is your day going?” or to say “Happy Tuesday!” as I get off the bus, and guess what? In no way has it negatively impacted my life! I would even say the opposite! I am surrounded my smiles, laughs, and nice people 99.5% of the time (you can’t win them all).
So I will leave you with three things:
- A smile is truly contagious.
- There is no such thing as being too friendly if you are genuine.
- Invest in a name tag (My mom picked this one)
Follow