05/14/2026
A simple smile.
It’s strange when you really think about it. We spend so much of our lives trying to “fix” ourselves. We buy the book. Try the new diet. Start the relationship. Buy the hoodie. Change our routine. Reinvent ourselves over and over believing the next thing will finally make us feel okay.
But most of the time, none of those things are actually what we’re craving.
Tonight I’ve been overwhelmed and in my own head, thinking about a hundred different things at once, and a stranger simply looked at me across the room and smiled. That was it. They didn’t know me. They didn’t compliment me. They just smiled.
And for a second I felt human again. Like the majority of the fluff going on in my brain was just taken away by that one stranger.
It made me realize how deeply people are starving for connection right now. Not perfection. Not more stuff. Just warmth. Acknowledgment. Eye contact. Proof that somebody else sees us while we’re all walking around carrying things nobody else can see. We need to smile at strangers more 🙂
