Teen to Teen Talk
New York, New Attitude
By Elizabeth Horner
 
Wandering around New York City--- at parks that abruptly end in busy streets, at people in business suits walking casually beside someone with neon-pink hair or long braids and a skate-board--- I can’t help but wonder if the entire planet decided to relocate to this one place. Maybe, the earth chose to curl up on itself like a piece of paper balled in a tired student’s fist, and become a world as diverse as always, but ten times more compact.
 
Of course, I had been warned many times to expect this; just as I had been told to try to ignore the feeling of rudeness that sprung from having so many people in one place. After all, Mr.-Wasn’t-Looking-Where-He-Was-Going and Mr.-Spill-His-Coffee-All-Over-Him know that they are never going to see each other again so they don’t make an effort to disguise their dislike of each other, and the situation that they have stumbled into together. Sales people wave flyers that the pedestrians refuse simply by pretending that there is no one speaking to them. It’s not the kind of place where people exchange smiles of greeting--- not even when the individuals in question are facing each other, even slightly touching each other as they ride together in an over-packed subway car.
 
But why am I mentioning all this? Is it to put down the place that has adopted me--- whose cityscape embraces me, whose hot chocolate warms me, whose energy has filled me? That’s the sort of thing one saves for diary entries or in long-winded rants to friends. No, the truth is, I have become singularly impressed by the inhabitants of New York , their character and their kindness.
 
~oOo~
 
I can’t remember the man’s face. I’d had a long day of classes, and besides, I’d picked up some of the New York habit of avoiding direct contact with other people’s eyes--- but as I sat with my back to the wall, awaiting the next train car to come through the station, I heard a male voice direct itself at the person beside me. “Are you military?” he asked, indicating the bag that was at her feet. It was, indeed, green camouflage, with some sort of insignia on it.
 
She answered in the affirmative.
 
The man stuck out his hand for her to shake. “Thank you for your service,” he said, before walking away.
 
~oOo~
 
Thirsty. I eyed the plastic bag I had dangling from my wrist, as the subway car jolted along its tracks. Leaning my shoulder against a pole in order to steady myself, I reached for the water bottle full of soda I had brought in preparation of lunch. Flipped open the cap and… PHLEW. It sprayed everywhere--- against the ceiling of the car, bouncing back towards the floor, over my clothes, and a couple of the passengers next to me.
 
“I am so sorry,” I repeated over and over, feeling once again the chastened 5-year-old who knows they’ve done something wrong.
 
From several directions came paper towels, napkins, and reassurances, “That’s quite all right,” “Forget about it”.
 
~oOo~
 
Again and again, I have seen middle-aged men offer up their seats in the subway to the elderly, and students. Again and again, I have had people smile and point me in the right direction when I have been lost. I’ve seen strangers stop a person in the street, not to ask for anything, but just to pass on a compliment. And it’s been nothing like what I expected, but everything like what people should expect of those around them, and of themselves.
 
I have written before about positive reinforcements, how little encouragements are capable of affecting a change in someone’s attitude, and helping them work with you towards mutually beneficial goals. But, thinking about it that way, it is still something you do for yourself, as much as the other person. This time around, I’d like to emphasize the way you can turn someone’s day around with any meager act of kindness.
 
In my experience, it is hard to know what a person is really going through. A smile may cover a mask of pain. A cup of caffeinated beverage might not be enough to help them fight the tiredness that is pulling them down like an anchor. A trash-can might not let them throw away the last, hateful words of an ex-boyfriend, a rejection letter to a school, a bill that they have no idea how they are going to pay.
 
You might not think that a word from you has much power against all of that--- but you’d be wrong. As a species, humans search for connections, ties to hold them in place, when it seems easier just to float away and escape. And at the worst of times, a person might feel dozens of these connectors begin to grow thin.
Knowing that someone else sees good in you, can appreciate what, at the moment, you have been too overwhelmed to notice--- creates a new tie that, while tenuous, is capable of relieving the burden of the rest.
 
I have been told several times that, as a young person, I am the future of the world. They probably meant that I would become one of the next generation of writers, or teachers, just as my classmates will take over for older individuals in their fields--- but I choose to interpret it as something else, something more. If we are building the future in our image, I don’t see why we can’t try to make it smile, one person at a time.