The Positive Ripple Effect

It takes one action to make a difference. Remember that butterfly? It can flap it’s wings on one side of the world and create a hurricane on the other (looking at the weather recently, butterfly please take a rest!). But what does that really mean? One of my favourite sayings as you may know is “If you are prosperous, build longer tables not higher fences”, but we are branching away from that today and looking more at the ripple effect.

Have you ever been told that you woke up on the wrong side of the bed? I know I have, and I am sure that @mwoodall could attest to this. In fact, in our years of marriage, he has learned that the easiest ways to ‘deal’ with me in the morning is to have a nice cup of tea ready and waiting. That I admit is my guilty pleasure and how I can face the world (we all have a crutch).

Now, your first interactions with your family, neighbours or co-workers can really set the mood for the day. What you might not realize is that negative grumble, or that calling someone a bozo during your daily commute, are all turning points. The ripple effect can continue on into the interactions with your coworkers. The frown as you walk in the door, your mind still on the argument you had with your partner, or still grumbling about the person who cut you off, is easily picked up on by those around you. Without realizing, your co-workers will take your unspoken cues and that will be the interactions with you for the day.

I remember one past co-worker in particular. You could tell as soon as she walked in the door if she had a fight with her child or with her partner that day. Without having a ‘reset button’, she would then allow it to build all day while working and would try and pick fights just so she could explode at someone. Her ripples would reach even as far as my family that night, sending those of us that worked in the same as her home with our own ‘ripples’. And it seemed no matter how much we tried to ‘tiptoe’ around the co-worker or change the feel and emotions in the office it would just bother her even more. Every day, my poor husband had to listen to me on why I was losing my mind at my place of employment. My child was cranky and acting out as a response to how I was interacting with them at home.

See how much negativity can happen, just by something that happened in someone else’s life and over 15 hours earlier? This is a ripple. But, not all ripples are negative. Some, heck, MOST are wonderful ripples. Let’s explore some of these options.

In the society that I live in, a smile is used as a gesture of goodwill and kindness. I know smiles can mean different things in various cultures, which is why I tell you what it means in mine. Now, try smiling, even if you don’t feel like it. That creates a warm, uplifting feeling in you, and when you smile at others, they often feel that warmth and positive effect on their lives. It is really hard to be angry after someone makes you feel good. That ripple can move to a different action, of holding a door, or allowing someone to merge into traffic ahead of you. The positive affect on those around us can be astonishing, and allows us to connect on a more human level, instead of an electronic one.

When interacting with your co-workers, keep in mind that the negativity that you bring with you from outside the workplace can actually poison the atmosphere. It is true! There are many great places to work that are often viewed as horrible due to the interactions with co-workers, or with the ripple effects in personal life from the work stressors. I have left places of employment, as I refused to accept the toxicity that would be brought into the workplaces by those that could not leave the negativity outside the door.

So be mindful of those ripples, as you never know what might happen from a positive or negative. As humans, our responsibility is to be humanly to others, and leave the world in a better place then we woke up to in the morning. That means it is not just a lifelong task, yet an everyday task that we must be conscious to from the moment we wake up, to the moment we close our eyes.

Try it! Make positive ripples in your life, and I guarantee you that you will start to see a positive effect, whether it be in others around you, or in your intrapersonal relationship as well.

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