I love confetti. It is so sparkly and festive. It can add a touch of flair to a decorated table, offer a glittery surprise inside a birthday card. In large doses, it creates a sparkly rainfall that screams celebration. No matter what the occasion or the application, one thing that is always certain – confetti sticks around. Think about it. That confetti that added sparkle to your tabletop is all over the floor at the end of the night. That confetti slipped into a birthday card spills out all over your lap. After a huge celebration complete with falling confetti, you will find it through your hair and behind your ears for days. Sometimes, it can be months later and a piece of that confetti might show up in unexpected places. I admire confetti for its staying power.
Some people avoid confetti because it is a mess to clean up after the celebration is over. I think that is a good thing. Why do we have to clean up the celebration like it never happened? Isn’t it a sweet surprise to find a bit of sparkle amongst the cookie crumbs and pet hair in your dustpan? Isn’t it a little reminder of all the fun you had during that celebration? We don’t need to sweep up all of our memories and throw them away. I say, let’s spread that confetti around!
Of course, I’m not talking about strolling through the streets flinging real confetti wherever you go. As fun as that sounds, I am talking about spreading around our own personal confetti. Everyone has it. We all leave a little something behind wherever we go. Some people leave a trail of sparkly, glittery, pearlescent pieces of themselves. People walk away from a conversation with these confetti sprinklers with a smile on their face. Just like the real stuff, that kind of confetti lingers too. It doesn’t just get swept away and forgotten, that kind of confetti stays with them. Every once in a while, long after the confetti was sprinkled, a piece of that confetti shows up in unexpected places, like in their hearts.
There are people who just naturally sprinkle confetti and there are those that sprinkle mud. There are people who leave you feeling good about yourself while others leave your feeling bad. Some people are in a constant state of happiness and others are just Grumpy Gusses, all day, every day. I think if people were more aware of what they were ‘sprinkling’, maybe some of those Grumpy Gusses would turn into Happy Hannah’s. Some people walk around miserable all the time. I can’t help but think that maybe all they need is for someone to sprinkle a little confetti on them to brighten their days.
I like to think that I am a confetti sprinkler. I try to be friendly to everyone. I try to treat people the way I would like to be treated. I try to compliment people when I can. Everyone likes to hear good things about themselves. I remember hearing someone say that when we have an interaction with someone, we should leave them feeling better about themselves than they did before they met us. So, in other words, you should leave some of your confetti behind. Your confetti could be a smile, some praise, a few kind words…it really doesn’t matter.
I try to sprinkle my confetti in a lot of different ways. I smile at people, I say ‘hello’, I hold doors for people, lend a hand whenever I can. It isn’t hard to brighten someone’s day. It isn’t hard to go a little out of your way to help another person. It usually turns out that the little extra effort we put forth pales in comparison to what those being sprinkled upon get out of it. I want to leave a little sparkle behind me wherever I go. I want to sprinkle my own form of confetti. It doesn’t need to be a cascading shower of confetti but just enough to add a little sparkle to someone’s day. It makes me feel good to make someone happy. The more confetti you sprinkle, the more your personal inventory of confetti grows.
I am a firm believer in what we put out into the world comes back to us. I plan on sprinkling lots of confetti around this world. By doing so, I can ensure that I will have an endless supply. Really, in this often scary world we live in, who can ever have too much confetti?
So, start building up your own supply and start sprinkling some of your own confetti around this world.
What a beautiful world it would be with more confetti in it 🙂