17 May Happiness is…saying hello!
Every day the average person meets with tens if not hundreds of others; our family and friends, work colleagues and clients, or even bus drivers and coffee baristas. But do we really “meet” with them and do we really connect with them? For most of us the contact is brief, superficial and barely worth noting. But it doesn’t have to be like this and we suggest, today, that there are benefits of finding ways to make each and every interaction and greeting more meaningful and more positive. Read on and enjoy…
I recently read about a traditional Tibetan greeting in which one party says to the other…”I recognise the place within you where god lives”.
Now I should start by saying, that I don’t think this is about “god” per se, but I love this wonderful greeting and I’d like to take a minute or two to explain why. Too often, we meet another person (maybe a friend or a colleague or even a loved one) and we might say hello or g’day or something similar but we’re often not really mindful of what we’re saying or, just as importantly, of the other person’s response. What I love about this Tibetan tradition is the following…
- because it’s slightly longer than most “Western” greetings it forces us to stop and pause and to take a moment to respect the interaction
- even more so, it prompts us to really and fully acknowledge the other person, mindfully
- it encourages us to be present
- and it triggers a search for “the place within [the other person] where god lives” or, in more tradtional positive psychology language, for that person’s strengths
All of this, and more, I’ve no doubt would improve the quality of connections in our personal and working lives; and improved connections, I’ve no doubt, would definitely lead to more happiness for all invovled!
So keep this in mind next time you greet an old friend or a current relation or colleague; use this nice saying or better still, come up with something of your own that sits comfortably with you and that achieves all of the same gaols (and if you come up with something really good then let us know…maybe we can publish a list of happiness inducing, positive greetings!)