The Love Experiment
by Ronnee Ruselle
I have learned over the years how powerful love can be. Everyone needs it, but so few share it outside of their immediate family and friends and even then it's becoming more rare.
A few years back I performed a little experiment just for my own curiosity and found amazing results. What I learned stayed with me to this day and I believe always will.
It started when I was about 17 and working in a newsagent while waiting for my College course to start. There was this one customer whom everyone in the newsagents hated. Nobody wanted to serve him and when he came in one day, because I was the new kid, everyone disappeared from the counter and let me serve him.
He came in at 3:30pm every day for his paper. He was a businessman, impeccably dressed in his suit. He walked in, slammed his change on the counter, demanded his paper and as I got his paper I asked, "Good Afternoon. How are you? You look like you've had a hard day", in as caring a voice as I could muster.
He grunted at me, glanced up and said "Fine", or something non-committal to which I replied, "Well, I hope your afternoon gets better and you have a wonderful evening", and he walked out of the newsagents with his head down reading the paper. I was pretty annoyed, but I soon calmed down because inside I knew that he wasn't angry with me - how could he be? He didn't even know me. He obviously had been having a horrid day and nobody is happy in such circumstances.
The other staff members assured me that I was being naive and that he was just a horrid person.
Anyway, the next morning at about 9:30am, this same customer walked into the newsagents and sought me out. He explained to me that when he walked out of the newsagents, it took him about 5 minutes to register what I'd said, but when it sank in, he suddenly stopped in the street and for the first time in a long time, he actually started feeling good.
He said it took he'd realized that I actually cared and that this made his day and he wanted to tell me that because of this he did indeed have a good afternoon and evening. He said that his wife commented that this was the first time in a long time that he'd come home happy with a smile on his face and because of that, his whole evening with his family was the best one he'd had in a long, long time.
He apologized for his rudeness and explained that he was just so engrossed in business and his worries that he did not realize how he was coming across to others but that he would make a real effort to appear happier and focus more on others around him. He thanked me warmly and shook my hand and left.
Well, I was floored! I felt wonderful and I felt so happy that this man could feel so good just because I was polite and showed some care.
That's what prompted me to see what else made a difference to people's lives - what small things we can do to help others. I decided to see what I could do with a smile.
I decided that I would smile and say hello to as many people as I could that day just to see what happens - strangers included. This was a big task for my given the fact that I was very shy, but I was determined to learn as much as I could about love energy.
The lonely old man who struggled to walk down the street on his way to the shops to get the daily loaf of bread had a slump to his shoulders and a cranky, unhappy look to his face. I smiled and called out, "Good Morning", as I went by and he looked up at first with a look on his face wondering who it was. Suddenly his face changed the moment he saw a smile turned his way. He suddenly beamed the biggest, most beautiful smile at me (who knew he had such a beautiful smile?), his face actually looked younger, he stood more erect and he even walked a little better.
Unbelievable! I was thinking that if it could have this effect, what else could a smile do? So I decided to find out.
Old ladies looked less afraid and the warmth they shared was so beautiful, they even stopped to have a chat. People who walked their dogs, people in the workplace who felt that nobody knew they existed smiled, neighbours became friendlier, children were just beautiful.
Everywhere I went, it felt like leaving a trail of magic. So my challenge to you all is to smile and say a warm hello to at least one person you don't know each day and all of those you do. We all know that love helps our families. Now try using it with people you don't know or those you don't normally bother with.
Give a compliment per day to somebody - make it a genuine one and make sure you do something nice each day for at least one member of the family - even if it's just to call and say, "I love you".
Smile for as long as you can especially if you're unhappy. It will soon have you and everyone around you feeling good. Then watch how it comes back to you.
Love energy is growth energy. Once you start using it, it expands and it multiplies and those people pass it onto others. You can create a wonderfully positive ripple that continues.
You may not see immediate results if the person is engrossed in what they are going through, but your kindness may just come to mind when they need it most.
Let us know what happened. If you'd like to share your story, send us an email and we'll put it here on the site so that others can read about the results of your kindness.