I hate people. I think I’ve mentioned this before. And admittedly, I’m a cynic. I’m a people-hating cynic, there… I’ve said it. I guess the silver lining, if there is a silver lining to being a people-hating cynic, is that I’m aware of it. I don’t live in denial. However, in recent years, I’ve been trying to temper my negative thought process. An incident that happened just this weekend brought this aspiration to the fore, and while I failed – utterly – in the moment, it did serve to enlighten me in moving forward.

Oh, it wasn’t anything dramatic. I was out grocery shopping, as is the norm in our consumer-based society, and besides, I was hungry… when I made a couple of observations about some people I came across in my quest for snacks.

The first was a young girl who was with her family in the cereal aisle. With a smile on her face, she was pushing the shopping cart in front of her and humming. Can you believe it? Humming! Happily, it seemed. And indeed, whatever song she was humming was bright and cheerful. What is she, I thought to myself, some carefree young kid?

Well, yes. That’s exactly what she was. My cynic’s mind put it down to her naivety about the world and continued with my shopping.

A while later, I passed an elderly gentleman. He was also happily humming to himself, albeit much more loudly. I thought it very strange. Two people humming in a supermarket in one day! What are the odds? Aren’t they annoyed by all the people crowding into the aisles, fighting for all the food!? Or that lady on her phone walking soooo slowly through the store and getting in everyone’s way? What about the thought of standing in the massive line at the single open check-out lane? I mean, come on! Who in their right mind would be humming when faced with such aggravations?

The girl I could kind of understand. She was a kid and kids can often see the brighter side of life that the rest of us miss. The man confused me though. He was older – maybe 80, and surely had experienced enough in life that he should be miserable, you know, as one does. How come he has the energy and enthusiasm to hum and send out positive vibes when doing something as mundane as grocery shopping? I’m only 50 and I was well on my way to losing it in aisle 9.

It was around this point that my train of thought derailed, and I realized that maybe, possibly, humming wasn’t that out of the ordinary. Being happy, even in public, could, in fact, be considered quite normal. I know, I know, but bear with me here, there’s more.

It wasn’t those people and their very public apparent happiness that was the problem. It was me. You’re shocked at this revelation, I know. I was too. It’s not that I don’t hum or sing the odd lyric under my breath, it’s just that, quite frankly, I would rather die than draw attention to myself. Sober, that is. And if I’m being honest, I still can’t fathom someone – let alone two someones – being so perky and upbeat in a grocery store, amid gads of people no less, that their happiness burst forth in song.

But just because I’m a curmudgeon doesn’t mean that other people are odd for simply being joyful. Let them spread a little bit of cheer, I say. Goodness knows, we’re all the better for it. Negativity is a vicious circle; it’s so easy to spread around that sometimes I think if it were a fatal disease, we’d all be dead in a matter of weeks.

The best course of action to keep negativity at bay?  Hum at the grocery store. Trust me. It works.