Hugs

Leo recently had someone tell her that they didn't like hugs very much because too many hugs make them lose their value.

This confuses Leo greatly, because to her it would be tragic if no one wanted to hug her anymore. A hug tells someone "I notice you, I care about you, you're allowed to feel safe." When Leo gets a hug, she feels perfectly safe and cared about for those few seconds before the other person breaks contact...Sometimes it even makes her entire day. She never feels as though hugs lose their value, unless they're bad hugs. A bad hug is when the person is distracted or rushed; you can feel the difference between that kind of hug and a full-on good hug. Good hugs will never lose their value because they always allow Leo to feel loved, no matter how many she gets.

Cuddles, of course, are even better.

Leo has made it her goal in the past year or so to make as many friends as possible and to give them as many hugs and compliments (which are verbal hugs) as she can. This is because she has noticed a trend in her life where more and more people are becoming sad, or not enjoying the way things are or putting themselves down. Everywhere she looks, people are reinforcing negativity, and she would personally like to see a little more effort being put into reinforcing positivity. If she can make a friend's day better by giving them a hug, talking to them like they matter and not contributing to the little voice society has cultivated which tells each and every individual that they are not good enough, that is enough to make her life much brighter.

The funny thing about thinking positively is that it is completely discouraged as being naive and ignorant. Leo is neither. She knows that there are things in the world that completely suck, but does it change things at all to sit around depressed? It does not. Leo feels that her individual Happiness Campaign helps the world much more than it would if she sat around moaning about how bad things were. Happiness is contagious, thinking positively is a habit just like any other thought process. Leo would like to see more people training their minds to say good things instead of bad things, and if she can help her friends see things in a better light, hopefully her friends can help their friends and so on and so forth.

A network of happiness would be a nice thing to see.