A Complimentary Sampling....

Don't you just love it when you go into a restaurant or even better, a delicatessen and they are offering samples of some type of goodies? You often hear "would you like to try a sample?" We see fudge, bread and beverage samples or one of my ultimate favorites, chocolate covered potato chip samples and our salivary glands go into overdrive. Walk into Jimmy Johns and after seeing their sign "free smells" and it causes our sensory abilities to go haywire.

Everywhere in life we are tempted with "free complimentary" products to sample. Each of these "complimentary" items only whets our appetite in the hopes of causing us to go deeper and buy a pound of fudge, a loaf of bread or a bottle of whatever. (And for the record, no, I didn't buy the bag of chocolate covered potato chips from that little store in Daytona, Florida!) At times, we get so wrapped up in these "complimentary" items, that we will spend tons of money buying the whole thing. Is there anything wrong with that? No, Lord knows I've done it before.

But what about those "real" complimentary samples? Why can't we, as humans, ever offer a complimentary sampling of COMPLIMENTS to our family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, relatives, etc?

So many times in today's world, we'll fuss with our closest friends or our parents or co-workers. We say hurtful things or have hurtful things said about us. Those comments stick with us, and you walk away thinking "wouldn't it be nice to have heard something NICE said about me for once?" And wouldn't that be nice? What if everyone could at least say one thing positive and nice about a person. Sure have an argument or disagreement with someone, but leave them with a compliment or something positive. Don't just walk away from the problem. The Bible says not to let the sun go down on our wrath. Too many times in today's world that is happening and that causes all sorts of problems for people - emotionally and physically.

I challenge everyone to offer a "COMPLIMENT-ARY" sampling to someone. When you do that, guess what? You'll probably get something nice said about you. People will gain an appreciation for you and then they might "buy in to you" (so to speak). Whet someone's appetite on occasion by saying something nice to them rather than something spiteful. Life is not fun when you have to live in pain -- whether physical pain or emotional pain. Say something nice to someone. Surprise them. Show them you love them. Some simple little thing you say, even if it's "I like your shoes" -- something so small can change a person's day, week, month or even life!

You never know how much you can affect someone by your words or actions. As one of my favorite quotes "To the world, you may seem like one person, but to one person, you may seem like the world."

Reach out, give some complimentary samplings & help make everyone better off, including yourselves.