A person’s mood is contagious, there’s no doubt about it. When a happy person walks into a room full of depressed people, it can often spread. Before you know it, everyone in the room can be miraculously cured of their depression. It only takes one person. Happiness can spread very quickly under the right circumstances.

Unfortunately, it works both ways. A person in a rotten mood can destroy a happy atmosphere in an instant. It’s sad, but true. How often have you seen on television a party that is going great until a fight breaks out and it ruins everything? It is human nature to mirror the mood of those around you.

For instance, one day I was feeling pretty great. For the whole school day, pretty much everything was going my way. Nothing especially great happened; it was just a normal day. I got out of my final class, ready to head off when I came across two of my best friends arguing. I didn’t know what it was about, and I still don’t. It didn’t matter. Both were obviously angry, and I didn’t want to get involved.

I headed to the Charger Shoppe to buy some cookies, but at the last minute changed my mind. From personal experience, I have learned that people giving you something, especially cookies, seems to improve their mood quite a bit. I bought two packages of cookies, and headed over.

“Scott, this is NOT a good time right now!,” one of them snapped at me.

This shattered any positive feelings I still had. Mumbling, I handed the cookies to both of them, and said that I would just leave. As I often do when I’m confused or need to let off some steam, I walked around the school. I deliberately walked past that area a couple of times. The last time I saw them, one of them was crying. This set my mood to all-out depressed.

Maybe I’m too emotional, I don’t know. All I know is that when my friends or almost anyone I know is upset, that makes me upset. I feel like it’s almost a duty of mine as a friend to at least try to make them feel better. But I believe that by doing this, I am often sticking my nose in business that it doesn’t belong. Still, it makes me feel awful when I try to help and it doesn’t do any good, or if my concern actually makes them more upset.

Fortunately, it paid off this time. Later that night, I went to Hairspray rehearsal. By this time, I was feeling a lot better, and as always tried to spread a cheerful mood. Soon, I saw my friend who had been crying. I said hi to her, and she proceeded to give me a big hug. She told me how much my kindness had meant to her, even though the timing had been a little bad. This made me feel so much better. We talked for a little bit, and went to go start rehearsal.

I guess doing random acts of kindness and saying nice things can help out after all. Like I said, a good mood can spread very easily. All you have to do is show a little kindness.