TKOG Who offers more validation than a parking attendant

NTKOG #222: The kind of excessively perky meddler who goes around heckling slash jekylling other people’s life choices because she simply can’t bear to leave her opinions unheard.

I am: constitutionally incapable of not staring at people in public, running wry mental narration over the actions I observe.

I am not: doing it because I think I’m better than everyone — or even anyone, really — but because I’m genuinely curious about the thousand worlds inside of us that strangers never get to see.

The Scene: Public thoroughfares and hubs of commerce the whole city over, where I took it upon myself to become a Public Validation Station. At least as much as I could without getting beat up. Because it occurs to me: some poor, deprived people out there don’t have blogs where scores of strangers can tell them they’re not crazy for drinking alone in the bath, or lovingly (and fairly) chastise them for dumping gin in their eyeballs. Some people probably don’t get told they’re great all that often, or at least not often enough. And surely I can’t let that kind of injustice stand!

As I looked for victims — er, recipients! — of external validation, I realized how very many opportunities there are to say something nice instead of sticking with the tried-and-true, y’know, nothing. I complimented women on their sundresses (I do this anyway), flashed enthusiastic thumbs-ups to humidity-braving joggers, held cashiers’ and clerks’ eyes while I told them just what exactly they were doing right. Heck, I waited twenty minutes at a TJ Maxx just to tell a manager that one of her employees was doing a particularly good job restocking the shelves.

And no one can really know how much good these things do. Maybe they’re an annoyance, maybe they come at a good moment — all I can tell you is that they didn’t seem to hurt anyone. People across the board smiled and said thank you. A few people stopped to talk to me a bit, about the weather, or what kind of day they were having.

I like it. It won’t realign the path of the planets, sure, but it’s simple and it’s nice. Of these countless interactions, though, there’s one that stands out:

The Whole Foods in Brighton, buying cereal and organic toothpaste because, dude, this girl knows how to party. As I waited at the check-out lane, the healthy-mommy shopper ahead of me clicked quickly through the credit card machine — then stared at the clerk with rapidly souring confusion when she wasn’t rewarded with the whine of a printing receipt.

“You accidentally hit cancel,” he explained, then, as she began to complain, “No, don’t worry about it. The screens look exactly alike. I’d guess that 30% of people do this. It’s a silly system; it happens all the time.”

And it’s impossible to convey in just words, but you know how some people possess that rare gift of radiance? Something about this guy — he was as vast and placid as a country pond reflecting the sunrise. The immortal guru of the express lane.

After he’d apologized, her face slowly unpinched, and she even cracked a tired smile as she wheeled her cart to the parking lot.

When I resumed my place in the line, I felt suddenly shy. Who was I to intrude on his job, even if it was just to tell him he’d done it admirably? But as I packed my groceries into my messenger bag, smiled up, “Hey, I like how happy you are. I mean, I think you made that woman’s day better just because she made that little mistake.”

“Thanks,” he said, and smiled big but kind of pitying, like why wouldn’t someone dispense peace of mind along with change for a twenty-dollar bill.

The Verdict: I think — I think I just met an honest-to-god guru. The kind of guy who’s so nice that he doesn’t even realize that niceness is an exceptional habit in the modern world. As I never seem to stop learning during this project, not only is it nice to be nice, but it often takes less energy than being negative or even than being neutral.

Man, though, Whole Foods Guru, he’s just a whole different level. He reminded me what I’m striving for: to one day — maybe not in this lifetime or the next, but one day – make the world a better place not by doing, but by simply being.

Tagged as: Good Karma Friday, i love it when moms are shopping and you can totally tell they run apples-for-snacks non-sugar households, i'm truly obsessed with casually stopping women on the street to compliment their clothes. if you see something (aesthetically pleasing), if this isn't nice i don't know what is, say something!, smug yuppies, speaking of joggers: why is it always 90% humidity on mornings i go out and like 50% on my rest mornings? way to give me a thumbs-down universe, the accidental guru, validation, whole foods