Positive human interactions can spread happiness

The human race is a social being. We all live in a community, inter-dependent on one another through caring and sharing to form a society. As such, all of us have to socialise with others at one time or another via human interactions. In fact, many of our day-to-day activities involve interactions with others and believe me, inter-personal interaction is also a skill that is invaluable to us.

Human interactions can come in many forms. It can be plain verbal which includes the volume and tone of your voice, gesturing with your body language or in writing with the appropriate choice of words. Many people may not realise that the way they interact with others can cause discomfort or unhappiness to the other party if they are not mindful of the possible implications of their messages to the other party. One example is to say 'Thank you' or 'Sorry' to others without maintaining eye contact or in a very 'cool and unfeeling tone'.

As we go along our daily lives within our community, a little gesture like a warm smile and an enthusiastic  'Hello' to our neighbours whenever we see them at the lift lobby can go a long way. It can brighten up the day and spread happiness to the other party.

When we see people in the neighbourhood, be it the cleaner downstairs, the postman across the street or the sales assistant at the grocery store, we can spread some warm and happiness to them by greeting them and spreading some cheerfulness to them.

This reminds me of a very warm experience I had when I visited the bank two weeks to exchange new notes for the Lunar New Year. I was there at 9.15am knowing that the banking hours start at 9.00am. However, a queue of about 15 persons were ahead of me and one of the bank staff steps forward to greet me with a smile. She then offered to write down the notes denomination and amount I need and inform me that the waiting time is approximately 45 minutes to an hour. She also highlighted to me that I can pre-order the new notes online in future to avoid the queue and come in to collect them without queuing. After that, she handed over two packs of Ang Pow packets to me. 

For a while, I thought that was a very pleasant customer service experience and quickly drove off the frustrations associated to the one-hour queue then. In other words, the kind gesture make me felt that the wait at the bank was not so bad after all. With this perception comes the willingness and acceptance to wait in the queue as I am not a strong advocate of Internet Banking due to security concerns.

In my opinion, personal human interaction is both an art as well as a science. It is an art because it involves a special skill to handle it well. It is however, a form of social science since an interaction brings forth a corresponding reaction. I guess that is what sociologist and social workers do to bring and spread happiness to people they deal with.

Nevertheless, it is also a skill that any one of us ought to pick as good, positive human interactions can enhance the quality of our lives and bring happiness to others in the community too!