SPARK ⭕ Smiles can make a heart drop - Seeds of Happiness

SPARK ⭕ Smiles can make a heart drop

SPARK ⭕ Smiles can make a heart drop

July 18, 2024

I am a receiver, not a giver. 

At the place I work, working in the parking booth is one of the more tedious positions to have. You spend the entire day outside, saying mostly the same thing over and over again. Each interaction takes about ten seconds but somehow people still find a way to not listen to you. It wears on you. And unlike every other position here you don’t get many opportunities to make human connections. When I do I jump at the chance. 

It’s been sunny lately, which means everyone is wearing sunglasses which means the ticket machine is hard for people to see. The solution is to tell people “I recommend taking your sunglasses off.” I guarantee you I have heard every variation of comment that can be made after this recommendation: “That helps.” “Polarized lenses.” “Wow, I couldn’t see anything!” I’ve seriously thought about keeping a tally. I know it sounds like I’m a complete stick in the mud, but imagine being a pilot and every passenger tells you to not let your arms get tired while flying the plane. Everyone is looking for a laugh and you have to give them at least a chuckle, every comment, 8 hours a day. The first day is fine, if a bit annoying. The second day you’re starting to wish someone would come up with a better joke. The third you can no longer pretend to be amused.   It is honestly personal connection moments that keep me from losing my head.

The one this story is for started out like any other. “I recommend taking your sunglasses off.” A jokey comment. The woman says to me “I imagine it must get frustrating saying that all the time.” I pull off my own sunglasses and say, “you have no idea.”  “Oh yes I do,” she says. Really?, I think, you also work in the service industry? “Because,” she says, “I’ve become one of the people you have to say that to!” Im not recounting the dialogue exactly as it occurred - it’s been maybe 40 minutes since this happened and I’ve been interrupted several times. But this was truly funny for me. Truly fun. I could count the moments I’ve genuinely laughed with a visitor on one hand, and I’ve worked here for nearly three years. And I’ve never had a laugh in parking.

Then she said, “you know what, I’m gonna give you this.” I will admit my heart dropped a little there. Because I was expecting a religious leaflet or something. We get those a lot. One of my last genuinely fun conversations ended with a religious leaflet, and I was very disappointed about that. I’m already a Christian, you are producing trash. I throw those away without reading them. But I take it anyway, and tell the woman, “I’ll take this but you can’t hand them out inside.” She said, “I wasn’t planning to, and it’s not religious.” Oh! Color me surprised!

She drives into the lot, leaving me with a teeny business card thing and a sandwich bag with an orange rock in it.  Okay, let’s see what this is. The card had this web address on it, but I was more drawn to the orange rock. The clay seed. I turn it around, grinning from ear to ear before exclaiming aloud, “It’s a little man!!” I’m a sucker for little mans: Plushes, tiny action figures, carvings, even bugs. Little mans, all of them, and I can’t get enough.

I will go home today probably tired, probably a little frustrated. I’ll have to figure out dinner, which is its own task. Change clothes, give my dog her medicine, take my own, and resist the urge to play solitaire until I fall asleep. But now I have this little man. And I intend to show him to everyone.

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SPARK ⭕ Difficult times

May 05, 2025

I sent seeds of Happiness to a family that lost a child. Here is the note I sent along with it.


Dear Heather,

I wanted to say I am so, sorry to everyone in your family. A good friend of mine, Mark Borella, made Seeds of Happiness for a dear friend of his and the family who lost their son.

Mark gave his friends a handful of smiles and explained he felt helpless because there was nothing he could say or do to take their pain away. So he made them a handful of smiles, thinking they could hold onto them until they got their smile back. The family loved them and it actually helped bring a smile back to each of them. I'm hoping that these will do the same for you.

With my deepest sympathies

Charlotte and family

Thanks Mark. You guys are the best!

Charlotte

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SPARK ⭕ Gems of a puzzle

May 05, 2025

My name is Mark. I am from St. Louis. I went into the Seeds of Happiness store where I was picking up smiles to share on a cruise that my wife and I were taking with another couple. We've been vacationing with this other couple almost our entire adult life. Come to find out Mark, the Seeds of Happiness guy and I, in the small world fashion, our lives overlap. I work with Mark's wife from time to time.  That was enough for Mark to treat me like I was an insider at his studio. He asked me to try something out. Mark took me back in the studio, he dug through a few boxes. He  comes up with these four triangular-round blue and red puzzle pieces made of clay. I watched as he puts the four pieces down on the table and start spinning and turning them until they make a four inch Seeds of Happiness logo. He says to me, give one to your wife, one to your buddy, and one to his wife, and Mark told me to keep one for myself. He continued, during your trip, when you're going to dinner or if you're going to do something fun,  make sure when you guys all get together before you eat or before you do whatever you're going to do, put your puzzle together so you start that event off with a smile. Understanding that if everybody does not bring their piece of the puzzle, the smile is not complete.

Honestly I left the studio with the smiles that I was planning to give out on the cruise, thinking “whatever” about the puzzle. Me being a guy, I thought it seemed a little corny. Well, I got home and told my wife about the puzzle. She loved the idea. At the airport prior to leaving we divvied up the puzzle pieces. We told our friends that Mark said to put these together before we do anything fun or adventurous. So there, at the airport for the first time, we assembled the smile. Well, let me tell you, it was the funniest thing! We all absolutely had a ball with it. At two points during this vacation, somebody forgot their piece of the puzzle. Let me tell you, with all the joy Mark intended, they ran  back to their room to get their puzzle piece so that we would start our excursion with a smile. It was hilarious! It was fun! It worked! It was part of our trip! We vowed that we would never go on a vacation without our pieces of the puzzle. I can't wait for our next vacation. Who knows we might complete our smile in some other country.

I went by the Seeds of Happiness studio with my buddy, the husband in the other couple. We both told Mark that never in our imagination would we have guessed how big of a part of the trip this would become. Mark responded, I just gave you a reminder on how to start your days. You are the ones who made the memories. You see, you never know what one little creative act of kindness might lead to. He then said, it usually leads to another act of kindness. Think about it, two  couples confined on a cruise ship, nothing but fun and no problems? That tells me, you start and finished each day feeling kindness towards each other! 
We told Mark he should sell these little “gems of a puzzle”.

A little side note. Mark told me he had made these for companies for meetings, as a metaphor! You see, of the people that work in a department could put their pieces together to make a smile. This then sets a tone of understand that every job is important, and if you're missing one piece to the puzzle, the company’s happiness is not complete. 

 

I thought this was brilliant.

 

So thanks again Mark. I'll keep you posted on our next trip.

 

Mark

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SPARK ⭕ Big things can come in little packages

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I keep a bag of Seeds in my car at all times. I share them with my circle of friends or complete strangers. It is a great inexpensive way to Touch somebody's heart and create a life lesson. Big things can come in little packages. 

May the Lord bless you and all of the rest of the work you do!

Dana

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