“Nobody waves—but everybody waves back.”
Reading this quote, I was struck by what a great example of karma it is. Your karma is your state of mind, which reflects the way you react to people and situations in life. In this case, if you are friendly to the world, the world is friendly to you. After reading this, I started waving to everyone on my dog walks, and absolutely everyone smiles and waves back. We go from strangers immersed in our own worlds, to humans connecting briefly through a wave and a smile. It’s a small thing, but it feels amazing.
I read this quote by Nicolas Epley, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in Jessica Pan’s Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come: One Introvert’s Year of Saying Yes. Here’s the full quote:
“A few years ago, I was driving through a remote part of Ethiopia, and I kept passing all these mothers and children outside of their mud huts. Everybody I passed stared at me like I was dead: totally blank facial expressions. It was the most uncomfortable I'd ever felt in my life.
“But then it occurred to me, while I was sitting there: I was looking at them in exactly the same way they’re looking at me. So I started smiling and waving as I went by—and it was like I flipped a switch. As soon as I started smiling, waving, and looking friendly, they started waving from their windows, grinning at me, and running out of their houses to give me high fives.
“That’s the truth of the world, Jessica,” he says, casually full-naming me to let me know something big is coming. “Nobody waves—but everybody waves back.”
Sara is the author of How to Be Happy NOW…Even if Things Aren’t Going Your Way, available on Amazon.com or Amazon UK, CA, FR , IT, ES and DE. © 2026 Sara Weston. A FREE excerpt of the book is available here.
A large portion of the thoughts and feelings you have are not yours, rather you pick them up from others. This may seem entirely shocking and untrue, but you can do an experiment to fact check this for yourself. Go for a hike alone on an uncrowded trail and take note of the number of thoughts you have. After you have been hiking for an hour or so, you’ll notice your mind is still and that you don’t have many thoughts. Next go to a mall or someplace crowded and walk around for a while and observe how many thoughts are running through your mind. In a crowded place you’ll notice your mind becomes very loud and full of thoughts.
A concern I hear frequently from folks who’ve recently started meditating is that they feel like they are thinking even more while they’re meditating than they did when they first started.
When you meditate, you go into the light that is inside of you. That light is inside of everyone and everything, and it cannot be owned by any culture, country, religion, lineage or gender. Anyone can slow their mind down and experience that light. It doesn’t matter if you’re fat or skinny, young or old, mediocre or extraordinary, a gal or a guy—anyone can meditate!
How to Be Happy NOW 
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