It's a marshmallow world in the winter...

It was the first week of my last semester as an undergrad. I live in Hattiesburg, Miss. and as you know round these parts, it doesn't ever get to be negative degrees outside but it does get to be about 30 degrees and with the wind it feels downright frigid. So I'm walking home from a challenging (especially for the first week of school) day of school alone. It's cold. Wind blowing and obviously my jacket is too thin since I'm shivering and I'm only about thirty steps out of the warm interior of the College of Business. I'm walking across parking lots trying to make a bee line for my dorm when I look up and a Gatorade cooler and two guys sitting on the curb. My first thought was, "Oh God they're going to try and sell me something. I don't want to stop and talk to anyone since it's too cold to be walking outside in the first place." Since they were directly in my path, there was nothing I could do to avoid these potential nuisances, so I keep going. As I get closer to them I try to think of the best (yet polite) way to avoid these men. Whether it’s as simple as not making eye contact or giving them a wide berth I couldn’t decide. As I get closer one of the guys gets up and picks up a Styrofoam cup. As I'm passing he says simply this, "Have you had some hot chocolate today?" Then he hands me the cup and says, "Have a great day." At first I was like..."Great, now I have to drink this and it's probably not sweet and it’s probably not hot and..." and this list of negativity went on and on. This steady stream of negative thoughts persisted until I took a sip and discovered that this small cup of hot chocolate had mini marshmallows in it. Suddenly my outlook on the whole exchange changed. Suddenly I was happy that on this miserably cold day, someone stayed outside with the sole purpose of giving out hot chocolate with marshmallows to shivering passersby. Suddenly, I was grateful and happy and definitely warmer. I finished my walk home and by the time I got there I felt a lot better and a lot less stressed about my day. Why is it that my natural instinct was the think the absolute worst about these Christian (they were members of the Wesley group on campus) men? Why didn't it occur to me that they were just trying to do something small to help people deal with the long walk in the cold?

And why is it that marshmallows just make hot chocolate so damn delicious? Is it that they melt and their sugary deliciousness spreads throughout the whole mixture making it that much sweeter? Or is it that it makes it more fun to drink since they are floating on the surface? Whatever it is about those marshmallows, that is what caused me to look at this situation in a new light. It is so easy to project a bad mood or stress onto a benign situation. Why isn’t it equally easy to project happiness onto negative situations?

Since it’s my last semester I want to make the most out of it. I realized from my own negative initial response to this pleasant encounter, that I need to step back and not let my own personal stress dictate how I relate to other people. I’m going to fight the urge to project negativity on things and instead, enjoy the marshmallows.