Day 27

Today I set out with a specific goal in mind: to compliment every stranger that crossed my path. Sounds fairly simple, right? Everyone likes compliments, right?!

There are two things that made this scenario less than desirable. 1) People don't like to talk to people they don't know, and 2) Often times compliments are perceived as something sinister with alternate personal motives. An uneasy combination of these two factors, made it extremely difficult to accomplish such a simple task.

I realized fairly quickly, after having a rushed encounter with the checkout clerk at the grocery store, that if I was going to make this work, I would have to establish some sort of presence with the stranger first. For some reason, without such a presence the compliment couldn't occur. I couldn't get it out of my mouth into the world and the timing was off somewhere dreaming of sugarplums or fairies.

Once I wasn't being rushed by post-holiday shoppers standing in queue, the task became a bit easier and a bit more natural. It really isn't hard to compliment strangers, and I think I actually do it on a more regular frequency than I would have otherwise thought. "I really love your necklace." "Those boots are fantastic." "Your baby is so beautiful."

These compliments could be left alone, just as they were, and that would be sufficient enough. But sometimes these compliments create something even more wonderful: a conversation.

Every conversation and every encounter needs to begin somewhere. What better place than to start it with a compliment. If the world could just learn to trust those compliments more, we would all be much better off.