Passing through a little village nestled in the hillocks, I wished to reach my destination before sundown. The bicycle ride had been a long one, eight hours long to be precise. I was still an hour away from the destination.
I stopped for a moment to have a sip of water. An elderly village lady walked towards me in the meantime.
She started speaking to me in Thai quite avidly.
I couldn’t understand much of it.
I just told her , ‘Me, Ban Samoeng’
Ban Samoeng was the village I had to reach.
‘Ah, Ban Samoeng! ‘ she exclaimed.

As I got on my bicycle and started to pedal, I felt a gentle push.
I looked back to see that the old woman was pushing my bike forward intending to help me bicycle on.
Oh the carefree smile on her face!
‘Bye bye!’ she waved to me excitedly.

And from deep inside me, she summoned a latent smile on my face. I was tired from the days bicycling, and had no energy to do much. But her gesture proved me otherwise. She fueled me enough to reach my destination with a smiling face, right in time.

It got me wondering about the power a human being possesses. You might often have experienced a lull in your daily life. There might seem no apparent reason to smile. But a stranger smiles at you with such warmth that you find yourself smiling out of nowhere.
Kids have this power over the whole world that surrounds them. No matter how tiring the day has been, once the father is back at home, he has all the reasons to smile and feel grateful as he looks at his child.
Even a stranger cannot resist the smile that a baby springs up on his face.

Realising this influence over each other makes one feel empowered. And as they say, with great power, comes great responsibility.

We have the power to summon smiles on people’s faces like a sorcerer. We can, with a simple decision to smile, being forth a discerning change in the energy of the world around us.

And once we choose to do that,
We feel,
‘The world is suddenly a kinder place.’

As humans, as social engineers, at every opportunity,
We should trade smiles.
For in this business,
Everyone Profits,
Smilingly.