pay it forward

I just remembered a Tumblr post I came across a few years back and tried searching it online and found this:

smile

This might just be a simple post, a form of vandalism(?) or a hipster-ish thing but it really is meaningful to me in many ways.

Recently, I really find it disappointing to see how people are losing faith in each other. I know this may sound too ideal, or what have you, but the littlest things can change a lot in this world. As this post shows, a stranger’s smile could be therapeutic for others.

Living in the metro for more than 5 years now has changed me but also made me love the life in the province more.

Life in the city is totally different from the one in the province. People in the city are more distrustful, even cynical at times. I have become more wary of my surroundings whenever I take public transportation and more alert with the people I interact with. It also feels like everyone is revolving around this big ball of money, running around like mad dogs trying to catch their own tails. It’s like a jungle with some sort of decorum subtly setting things in order. This actually reminds me so much of that cafeteria scene in "Mean Girls" where, in Lindsay Lohan’s imagination, the people in the cafeteria started crouching at each other like wild animals -- but in reality, they were just talking or talking behind each other's back. If ancient cultures determined winners through physical fights, nowadays, people shyly smile at each other but are subsequently and secretly stabbing each other;s back whenever a chance exposes itself.

The city reveals different kinds of people who destroy their faith in one another when an opportunity to be in a higher pedestal than someone else comes by. It feels like people are always trying to outsmart each other, to be better than someone else, to have the best...that they lose sense of what’s more important, of what is less tangible, of what humanity should be like.

Sometimes, the world forgets about kindness because people are way too scared of the kind of harm others could inflict than the kind of goodness they could share. All of these crimes happening in the midst of our daily lives remind us to always stay on guard and keep others at bay, especially strangers. It is probably inevitable especially if one had some bad experience before, but it still dismays me to see cold-hearted people who choose to turn away from something they could actually do something about. Noticing someone who seems lost and helping that someone without him/her asking really means a lot. Even a simple thank you, you’re welcome, excuse me, and sorry can somehow brighten someone’s darkest days. And yes, at times, even a stranger’s smile could remind us how such wonderful proofs we are of the existence of this world.

We don't always have to live for our careers, our education, our jobs, the materials things at our disposal...we could also live for the smallest things that actually matter -- the simple acts of kindness may it be in words or deeds, generosity despite one's economic status, trust amidst fearfulness, and a tad of optimism in this awfully skeptical world.

So smile your hearts out; you’ll never know how much that could mean to others. And move forward—to greater deeds – for a better world.