Catch my Disease :)

Florida, the sunshine state, where everyone is smiley and wears flip flops year round. It’s my home; Orlando, Florida to be exact. “What on earth would I be doing here?” you might ask. Well, that’s another story for another time.

I’ve been in England just over two years now and yes, I absolutely miss home. I miss the food, Disney World, Universal Studios, New Smyrna Beach, warm weather, and friendly faces. Also, nothing compares to a having a sunny Christmas where it’s 23 degrees out (sigh).

Then on the other hand, there’s London. Fish and chips, Thorpe Park, Madame Tussaud's, Brighton, rain, and less smiley faces. I struggled quite a bit when I first moved here because well…. you may understand where I’m going with all of this.

You can’t make eye contact with passers-by, people step on your feet or shove you without saying excuse me and even worse, if you even try to ask a stranger a question, he/she may look at you as if you have seven heads.

Those behaviours really got me down for a while until one day I decided I would buck the trend and treat everyone the way I did while living in Florida.

No matter where I went or who I interacted with, I would give a smile. It’s amazing how contagious it is when you smile. You should try it sometime. I even do the same on the underground on my way in to work. In fact, just this morning there was a woman standing in front of me who looked really umm…..let’s just say, unhappy. We made eye contact, I smiled and she surprisingly gave me a very warm smile right back. Her smile made me grin and as I walked off the train onto the platform, my grin made someone else in passing smile. I’m sure the woman might have thought, “Uh, why is she smiling at me? That’s a bit weird.” In the end it worked anyway, she smiled!

I even go as far as talking to the clerks at grocery tills and asking them about their day. This is all much to their dismay of course, but I believe some of them actually like it when others take an interest in what they’re doing.

I acknowledge that not everyone you try this with will react as positively as you might want them to, but I really challenge you to smile more. It’s contagious whether other people recognise it or not.


Stacey McPherson