have a nice day

in addition to adventure, fighting evil monsters, and saving the world from darkness, most fantasy video games also have an element involving visiting boring little towns where boring little people live. towns are more or less a necessity, as you need them to stay at the inn (which miraculously heals any and all wounds), buy new weapons or other items, or just get information useful for your quest. these towns always have quaint little people who you can talk to by going up to them and pressing A. usually they only have one like to say unless they give you a side-quest. otherwise, it's the same boring sentence every time you walk up to someone to talk to them.

as hilarious as these interactions can be, they are often much less pathetic than some of the everyday interactions i have with people whom i know. how often do you find yourself walking on campus, at the store, or elsewhere and see someone you know walking towards you? you avoid making eye contact till you're about a good appropriate 10 feet from him/her. as you walk by, one person starts the riveting conversation by saying, "oh hey, how are you?" to which the other responds, "good, how are you?" you then walk by each other before the second person can actually answer. wait, what? seriously, at least in the video game you stop moving to talk to a person (despite main characters never actually saying anything).

now, how honest are we being when we say "good," when walking by? how often is the real answer to "how are you," something more like, "oh, i'm stressed, anxious, and kind of hate everything right now.." but do we really want to say that? and do would we really care if someone opened up to us like that?

take another example from a more obscure super nintendo game- Faceball 2000. the premise of the game is pretty simple, you choose a giant floating shape with a weird face on it, and run around in a maze shooting other weird giant floating shapes. basically like paintball, but with faces. and the shapes kind of pop when you hit them. 

anyways, when you get destroyed by another face-guy, their face pops up on your screen, and you hear them tell you in a snarky, sarcastic voice to "have a nice day."

have. a nice. day.

i think often our interactions with people are sometimes kind of lame. like these weirdos from my nintendo games. do we walk on by or do we actually stop to talk to people and see how they're doing? are we the kind of friend that people can open up to, or do we just halfheartedly listen, give our judgments and yet tell them to "have a nice day" after not really listening or helping at all?

James teaches it better--

"If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, by ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them no those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone" (James 2:15-17).

let's try to be nicer to each other, let's try to be better friends, better brothers and sisters, better followers of Christ. we won't have all the answers for every problem or be able to fix every burden, but life becomes that much easier for all of us when we love and care for each other and actually mean it. 

and then it's not so weird to see a smiling face tell you to have a nice day.