Running Smile Diary

How many people are smiling back, if you smile at them while (you are) running?

Below will be a diary of an experiment serving three interrelated causes:

  • Answering the question of whether the world smiles back at you, if you approach it with a smile.

  • More purposefully enjoy running in general. Having a smile on my face can only help there.

  • Living more accordingly to something David Goggins speaks about: Finding pleasure in a place where other people don’t want to be. Now running isn’t the most uncomfortable place, but I see a lot of people “suffering” through it. Can I be purposefully good in this place of suffering? Maybe.

Experiment set-up:

  • I run about 5km 2-3 times a week alongside the Isar in Munich. This training ground will be the stage of the experiment

  • Smiles that count: Someone not smiling before, being smiled at, and then smiling back. It doesn’t matter if this someone is running, walking or, sitting

  • Smiles that don’t count: Someone already smiling before making the “smile-contact”

  • Limitation: I will not be able to count all the people I smile at during my run. Therefore no percentages of smiling vs. non-smiling can be calculated

Entries:

17-10-2021: Turns out I’m actually running more like 1x per week. Dancing classes & my weekend shifts at the Bahnhofsmission are more than enough. I ran today though and 0 smiles

17-10-2021: Short update: I reduced my running cadence from 3 to 2 times per week. The reason being my newfound volunteer work at the “Bahnhofsmission” in Munich. The work there entails a 6-hour “shift” each weekend, where I am constantly on my feet. To give my body the rest day it needs, this 6-hour shift replaced my weekend run.

05-10-2021: The switch of tactics to nod at men instead of smiling paid off today. 1 man gave this intense / validating nod back which seemed to come from a place of: “we’re in this together”. Loved it.

28-09-2021: 0 smiles

26-09-2021: 0 smiles today

23-09-2021: 0 smiles today

21-09-2021: One man nodded back to me today. It opened up a thought: Most people that smiled back were women. Maybe men don’t feel like smiling. Maybe they want to feel bad-ass while running and want to nod as a sign of appreciation. So I will switch it up from today: I continue to smile at women, but I’m going to nod at men (and count the nods back).

19-09-2021: 0 smiles, but today I’ve felt bad. So I did not initiate the smile

16-09-2021: 3 (!) smiles today !! Best day so far. All three were other runners and one even waved at me

14-09-2021: 0 smiles

09-09-2021: 0 smiles

07-09-2021: 1 smile from a woman on a bike !

04-09-2021: 0 smiles

31-08-2021: 0 smiles today.

29-08-2021: Again, 1 smile back :)

26-08-2021: One full smile back ! Yes ! And this time it was not from someone I already knew but from a woman in a park.

24-08-2021: Half a smile. I think 2 people did not neccessarily start smiling when I looked at them, but their smile was then targetted at me. So I count these two as one half.

19-08-2021: 0 smiles.

17-08-2021: 1 person smiled back, and it was one of my neighbours that already know me.

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Are we “Raised in Captivity”? Pt. 1

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