The Value of a Smile

Scene 1: An Infoscion(that's how an employee at Infosys is addressed), goes to the cafeteria in his building to fill water in his bottle. There a house keeping person(who is responsible for keeping the floors clean) is filling water in her bottle, and on seeing the Infoscion coming over with an empty bottle in hand, she immediately steps aside even without filling her bottle completely. The Infoscion lost in his own world goes on and fills his bottle and just walks to his cubicle, without even bothering to look at the face of the house keeping staff who had stepped aside for him.

Scene 2: The same Infoscion starts from his cubicle for lunch. When he reaches the entrance of his building, he sees N. R. Narayana Murthy, Founder, Chairman and Chief Mentor of Infosys, on the other side of the door. Thanking his fortunes on that day, the Infoscion politely opens the door for NRN(that's how he is know across the company) and waits till NRN walks in. On seeing this guy opening the door for him NRN thanks the Infoscion with a smile. The Infoscion is so delighted that he rushes back to his cubicle and informs everyone over there from his project about the incident.

These are two different situations which actually have many things in common.
Quite often we fail to notice small gestures of goodwill, of generosity, of benevolence, of modesty, of compassion by people around us.

Even if we notice it, we fail to reciprocate to it, to appreciate it or even to acknowledge it. Especially if it’s from a person who belongs to the lower strata compared to us in terms of the unwritten standards defined by the society, be it in terms of occupation, financial capability, education or even appearance.

But it’s a different case when someone more superior to us or at a higher position, acknowledges us or our deeds.

The Infoscion whose day was made by a smile and “Thank You” by NRN, someone whom he looks up with lot of respect, failed miserably on his part, when he didn’t even bother to look at the house keeping staff who stepped aside so that he could fill his bottle of water.

We in our lives have failed many a times like that. So many times that, we wouldn’t be able to even recollect them.

Even today we would have missed to appreciate a small gesture of goodwill from someone….

From the driver who stopped the bus on seeing us running towards it, even though it was not a designated stop…
From the security guard who helped us in opening our bag for security check while entering the campus…
From the person who waited at the door, so that we could pass through it first…
From the person who stopped the lift door from closing on seeing us rush to the lift…
From the person who served us food…
From the person who cleaned our table at the food court before we sat there…
From the person who replied to our query we put up in "Bulletin Board", an online discussion forum accessible to all employees across the company…
From the person who came in to clean our cubicle…

There are many more instances like this. These are just a few among them that came into my mind in a flash.
I am sure we would have missed at least one among them, at least one gesture, which could have been reciprocated with just a simple smile.

At times we are hesitant to take the first step, thinking whether our smile will be reciprocated by the other person or not. Well, don’t think too much, if someone is too tired to give you a smile, leave one of your own, because no one needs a smile as much as those who have none to give.

Occupation, financial strength, education and social status don’t tell the real worth of a person. It’s the way how he/she acknowledges and reciprocates to the small gestures of goodwill, of generosity, of benevolence, of modesty, of compassion by fellow human beings, that says how worthy he/she is.

It's time for all of us to do an introspection of ourselves as to whether we are really worthy individuals.
It’s time for us to realize the value of a smile.