Three Smiles Project

Three Smiles Project

Today I wanted to start a new project. I wanted to smile at three people everyday. I got this idea earlier this afternoon as I was waiting to cross a street. When the pedestrian light turned green, an old woman on the opposite side of the street smiled at me as we both started walking across. Automatically I returned a smile. But why was she smiling? Did she find something amusing about the traffic light? And why did I smile back at her? Nevertheless, the exchange of smile made the world around me sunnier. I began to remember the days following my awakening last year—I was filled with so much light and happiness that I smiled at everyone on the street and I wanted everyone to smile with me. I even had a big smile when I went to pay my parking ticket, wanting the clerk behind the counter to share my happiness. In those days, I felt I could make the world a better place just by smiling at people.

It should not be difficult to find three people to exchange smiles with in Ann Arbor, a progressive college town with many pedestrians and students and professionals and intellectuals and liberals. Today I had to walk six city blocks from the downtown post office to a campus bus station, passing by the public library, a few bookstores, and a number of shops and restaurants. I could easily encounter hundreds of people.

The first person I looked at was a middle aged man standing next to me in line at the post office. His eyes were fixing at the package in his hands. I looked at the other customers in line; they all were too occupied to see me. When it was my turn, the post office clerk smiled at me, but I did not count it as one of my three smiles.

I walked outside the post office. A young woman hold a bike was putting on a helmet. I looked at her healthy face, caught her eyes, and smiled. She smiled back to me. What a sweet smile! In that instance when our eyes met, I was immersed in a glow of light. Together we were radiating warmth and peace and love. I was connected to another human being! And my experience of the world had expanded, as if her life and my life in that moment of intercourse had joined together as the energy of life flew freely between us. My spirit was rejuvenated and anew. I wanted to dance in the sunlight.

I thought I would have an easy day for my three smiles project. Soon I realized I was wrong—I failed to make smile with the next person, and the next, and the next, and the next…

I tried. I tried to smile at everyone even if nobody was smiling back at me. If I kept the big grin on my face much longer and more forcible, I would have looked like a self-amusing fool!

Most people on the street wore a blank expression when they walked about. They stared in front of them but their minds were elsewhere. Sometimes they saw me, but they did not see me. They were not inside themselves behind those expressionless eyes. I searched for any sign of recognition on their face when I looked into their eyes. I saw nothing. No sign. No eye contact. No connection. No smile.

Many times people pretended to look my way when we approached each other. As soon as they saw that I was looking at them, they quickly look away, as if they were afraid of meeting my eyes. Was I intruding on their inner thoughts?

There were people looking absentmindedly at window displays of shops. When I walked by, they subconsciously turned to look at me but they faces told me they did not see me.

The students were either on cell phones or listening to their portable music. The cell phone people were engaging in lively conversations with their friends. They had great smile on their face, but they were smiling at people invisible to me. The earphone people wore the do-not-disturb expression. It was no use trying to compete with the intimacy of music or the invisible friends.

For a while I wanted to try to engage car drivers. Surely they would have to make eye contacts with the pedestrians? Or they should not. They are operating deadly machines and need to concentrate on driving rather than smiling with the passersby, making peace with the world around them. Nevertheless, I did hope they could see me smiling at them.

Sometimes I came across single men, but I became apprehensive to look at them closely. I did not want any friendly gesture to be misinterpreted. I knew the danger of a suggestive eye contact that could say so much more than words.

Those who were with families or friends I excused. They were smiling with their companions. Some of them, however, were staring straight ahead as if they were tired of interacting with each other. If they could not connect with the people they were with, who was I to hope for a connection?

A few times I noticed that when I stared at people long enough, they would look back at me with confusion, fear, or resistance. Their gazes were cold and unforgiving. If I tried to out-look them, they broke the eye contact away.

In ten minutes, I had come across at least 200 people and I could not connect with anyone. I sought for their eyes, their smiles, their recognitions. In return, everyone had their soul’s window closed to me. In this bustling city of friendly people, everyone was his own island.

Everyone seemed to be in his own thoughts. But where were his thoughts? Why weren’t more people putting their thoughts into where they were? And, once they had reached where their thoughts wanted to be, would they find peace, or would their thoughts begin to wander away again?

I was thinking about this, and soon I was lost in my own thoughts. I must have become just another soulless person, living in my own isolated island of the mind. Absentmindedly, I reached for my cell phone.

I used to think I liked to live in big cities. I liked to be one of the million city dwellers, unknown to one other. I liked to be the expressionless face on the subway, by the sidewalk, in the elevator. I liked to be the indifferent observer who saw everything that went on in the city and returned to his small apartment, reflecting upon his own existence. I used to feel safe to be alone in a city. But I was never alone. Everyone around was like me, all expressionless, all unknown, all alone.

Whenever one chooses to close himself in, his experience of the world becomes limited. To other people, he is just an object. He walks around and moves about, but he is no different from a tree or a light pole or a waste basket, without any purpose, initiative, or life.

As I was thinking, the bus came and I got on. What do I do now? Do I smile at each person on the bus? If someone smiles back, would we feel obligated to smile at each other intermittently until one of us gets off the bus first? I would not like the potential pressure. I look around quickly and was relieved to see that nobody was ready to exchange smile with me. To avoid being a blank face, I took out a book and buried myself in.

At the next stop, the bus picked up some new passengers, among them several were construction workers. One worker sat next to me. A single male passenger on a bus! What to do now? Should I smile at him, or keep pretending that I was reading? I turned my head slightly toward him to see whether he was in his thoughts. At that moment, he detected my movement and turned his face toward me. He was here and he was now; he was aware of the world around him. Our eyes met, and a smile grew naturally out of us, as the world of people came into focus. Then I knew that he knew that we both knew that we had touched another human being. We had connected.

Magical eye contact. Magical smile. Magical connection.

Without any anxiety to start chatting, I returned to my book with a smile in my heart, although I could sense that he was open to more smiles or a conversation. Later we had a chance to make small talks, of the road conditions and of the weather. When I had to get off the bus, we smile at each other as he let me pass by. I was happy.

Inside my department building, in the narrow corridors, I passed several colleagues. We made mechanical greetings and mechanical smiles, but we never looked at each other and we never smiled. It must be a habit that we never smiled at strangers.

I ask myself, on my way home tonight, can I find one more person to smile with? Or am I asking for too much?