Daily Inspirational Message for November 24, 2013

I firmly believe in small gestures: pay for their coffee, hold the door for strangers, over tip, smile or try to be kind even when you don’t feel like it, pay compliments, chase the kid’s runaway ball down the sidewalk and throw it back to him, try to be larger than you are – particularly when it’s difficult.
- Jonathan Carroll

I once read a psychological study, the results of which showed that people tend to associate the words that a person speaks with the speaker and not with whomever the speaker is referring to. For example, if someone is always complaining about other people being rude and selfish, listeners will tend to view that person as rude and selfish. I think that in a similar way, we all tend to view other people as being similar to us deep down, and to view the whole of life in light of our own personal moods, habits and tendencies. This is good news if we’re willing to be proactive, for it means if we want to live in an extraordinarily happy, friendly world where people are kind to each other, we have only to strive to be extraordinarily upbeat, kind and friendly ourselves. Give it a try: if for the next month, you go to ‘crazy’ lengths to be the sort of person you want to interact with every day, I bet you will start feeling like the world has become a much friendlier place.