“You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, but there's still going to be someone who hates peaches.” - Dita Von Teese

I’ve always been so sensitive to people that I felt weren’t particularly nice to me. I walk into the doctor’s office, the grocery store, the gas station, the classroom and everywhere in between looking to make small talk with someone new or exchange smiles with a stranger. Some people aren’t this way. In fact, a lot of people are quite the opposite. Has Cruella Deville herself ever rung you up at the grocery store? I always hate to encounter these people, thinking, “Would it kill you to smile?” I then start to think about what in the world I possibly did to cause someone to be so sour. I exit the building with an eye roll, mimicking my cashier’s attitude: sour.

I start to back track. I walked into the grocery store; I picked out my groceries, and headed up to the counter to check out with a smile on my face, ready to be friendly. I haven’t bothered a soul and my reaction at the counter is an angry cashier avoiding eye contact at all cost. Where did I go wrong? I’m a ripe and juicy peach. I guess she just doesn’t like peaches.

I know exactly where I went wrong. I went wrong by thinking so vainly that someone would act angry towards me because they found my friendliness upsetting, just because. How vain it is to think that somebody would take their precious time to be angry towards me because she just doesn’t like “peaches”.

I’ll tell you why this cashier maybe didn’t reciprocate my friendliness. It’s because she may be a single mom fighting to feed her children, she may be suffering from domestic violence, maybe she was just laid off from her corporate America job and she feels that her potential is whittling. Maybe it’s the anniversary of her mother’s passing, or she found out her baby boy has cancer. It could be she has strong regret weighing on her heart or that she lost a relationship she can’t live without. She may be the ripest, juiciest peach herself but she doesn’t feel it or see it. It could be anything. There is more to the lives of people who come across as angry than we are able to see. In fact, this is the case with the majority of the people that we encounter daily. We can’t possibly know everyone’s story, but we can be slow to judge.

Here is how you live like a ripe, juicy peach: You leave a sweet after taste. To the people that you pass daily, the ones that hang their heads, the ones that shrug you off, the ones that seem angry with you for no reason… You smile when you greet them and you smile when you leave them. You share your happiness with them at first glance and when you catch their eyes upon your goodbye. Don’t turn sour because you didn’t get the reaction you wanted, be ripe, juicy and sweet all the way through, and leave them a piece of your fruitfulness to hang onto.

You may have planted a seed.