Busy, Busy, Busy

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What is your standard answer for:

“How’s it going?”

Seems to me that we haven’t learned much in the way of anything new.

The answers I get are:

“It’s going.”

Or

“Same shit. Different day.”

Not a whole

Lot of cheerfulness in those responses.

Every once in awhile some nut bag will say something along the lines of:

“It couldn’t be any better.”

That one is a little hard to believe coming from a guy pushing a drywall cart on a dirty construction site.

I usually try to give a real answer if someone asks me.

“Busy. Too busy. Wish I wasn’t so busy.”

If I’m having a miserable day I will probably try and mix in a joke or two to see if I can liven things up somehow.

We all need to interact.

What I find amazing are the people who might tell you their entire life story, as a total stranger, when you’re waiting on a line.

That happens every once in awhile.

“I have to get home because I left the kids with my mother and she likes to get her drink on and since my kids are assholes they’ll fight with her. I may get home to three dead bodies.”

It’s hard to say anything to that.

And they’ll continue!

“I wouldn’t be alone but the kid’s father is a real piece of work. He sleeps and plays video games all day while I have to cook and clean and shop. No wonder my mother drinks. Her husband, my father was the same sort of piece of shit.”

I’ll just stand there and nod.

“Anyway, how’s it going for you?”

“It’s going.”

The thing is, pay attention to how you greet one another. Especially total strangers.

We all should be smiling more.

Everyone is so damn angry!

I bring it all up because I was walking down a city sidewalk yesterday and I passed by a young girl who was half-jogging, half-running. 

We were the only two on the sidewalk. As she passed I said:

“Good morning.”

She didn’t answer!!

But she smiled.

And continued right on by…

…and I thought about it.

Just a pleasant smile.

Didn’t cost her a thing.

We should all be more pleasant.

No matter how busy we think we are.


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