A smile confuses an approaching frown. ~Author Unknown
So today I walked into Starbucks and the people there greeted me with a smile. I am sort of a familiar face to them..hee hee. Anyway, there was a girl there who I had never seen before and she was the most enthusiastic of them all. I was happy to see that because I got some zeal for life myself. Well I was taken back and as she and were laughing and joking she proceeded to tell me this story.
She said one day she was working and that she greeted a customer very happily and she was then asked by the customer, if Starbucks required them to smile. Like it was part of procedure to do so. Now i heard this and it stirred something in me that has always annoyed me and that is people do not find joy in life anymore. The simplicity of life. The simple joy of living. There is no spark in people that automatically places a smile on there faces. People are shocked by joy. This is a strange concept to me.
Growing up people would ask if something was wrong with me. People would ask when I was at parties if I was drunk. No one could ever fathom that someone's heart, like mine could truly just be filled with joy. We have lost the art of living and have become robots to a apathetic society. We are only happy when we get something from someone, or a situation. True Joy is basking in joy itself. Is finding joy in the giving and not the getting.
I guess it drives me crazy that this generation coming up has lost its excitement. They are known as the "whatever generation". They are the generation that has been numbed out by gadgets and gizmos and being over stimulated too early in life. There was not a gradual progression to there wonderment. It just all snowballed and now we have kids who have seen it all and very possibly done it all before they were old enough to drive. Its funny my friend and I were talking one day and we are the same age of 31. She asked me, "in high school what was your main focus outside of school?" I said," what was gonna be on TV that weekend, guys and my friends and hanging out." She said, "yeah know, me too. It was definitely not having a baby."
I thought Amen to that. Wow, to think that instead of teaching our kids that we need to wait until you get married to have sex and then have a family and basically teach them otherwise, we give them a TV show or birth control. The interesting part is that once you have been exposed to so much too soon, nothing simple is enough. I find that as I attend school amongst students who are much younger than me. I will laugh, or see the humor or excitement in things, while they will sit there and look at me like I have two heads.
What is funny is that I am not angry or upset, but it makes me sad for them that they cannot smile for no reason and find joy in life, no matter if it is going there way or not. This generation is being taught to blame and not to take the blame. They are taught to walk away and not work it out. They are being taught that hurting and suffering are bad things that need to be avoided at all costs and that pleasure and what I want are worth all my time and energy. There is a distortion of truth here. It's no wonder Christ on the Cross is scary today--there is pain, suffering, and sacrifice on that cross...all things that are being taught to be avoided. Without truth being given to them, this society learns to be complacent and unenthusiastic. They learn to ask people if they are required to smile. They have to question true joy, because they have never really seen it before.
I feel that when I can look at myself and laugh, when I can die to myself for the Love of God, when I can look at myself and forgive myself for making mistakes--that is true JOY! When I can see my imperfection and embrace the truth in that--there is JOY. When I can look and see that other people live in this world around me and I am here to love and serve them as my brothers and sisters--TRUE JOY. When I can look at the beauty of nature and colors of fall in wonder and awe. When I can look at a baby and see how careful God was in making me...truly then, in that moment, I can experience a GREAT JOY. A joy that can only come from one source--GOD--truth itself!!
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