This is really bad.  I mean, I knew that a target of 50 smiles a day would be challenging but this is really pretty pathetic.  I started on Monday and my total for week-to-date (Thursday) is 17!  That’s the total!  The last time I did this my score was low as well but not like this??!!  What’s going on?

In analyzing my low smile-count I’ve come up with a couple possible reasons for it:

• First, I’ve just not been actively pursing this goal.  I’ve forgotten or been too busy or too flat out grumpy to do this.  To get a high smile-count I have to be looking for people to connect with.  I have to want to project and receive a happy face.  If I’m walking around doing my version of Ebenezer Scrooge than for sure I’ll be in the single digits daily.

• Another reason (and I’m not looking for excuses) is that other people are not actively pursing this goal.  I walked through the hardware store this afternoon focusing on the positive and looking to make eye contact and get the smile.  Out of dozens of people I walked past only two people were aware of or acknowledged my existence.  (I got one smile and one “what’s up” nod that my son wouldn’t let me count because it wasn’t technically a smile.)  Everyone’s busy and in their own private atmosphere.  Why should they go out of their way to acknowledge a stranger?  What’s in it for them?  The question, even as I pose it here, strikes me as related to a change that I’ve observed in the raw friendliness pattern of our human interaction.  With the catchy phrases we hear about “stranger danger” why am I surprised that “friendliness” is not a stronger value in our culture?

I’ve found that I have to put myself into places and a mindset where I can interact with people in a friendly fashion.  Sounds easy but sometimes I get stuck in my reclusive, Thoreau mindset and find it hard to get out.  This is not an easy workout for me but so what.  By making this an official workout there is accountability and it keeps it at the top of my mind.   Without it I find myself drifting towards a fortress mentality that doesn’t allow for open and positive interactions.  In fact, I see more clearly how, in the languages of some primitive cultures, the word for stranger and enemy are the same.