Niceness: try it

We tend to think only people from Texas are friendly. Yankees, that is to say, anyone from anywhere else besides here, are supposed to be rude and abrupt. Our daughter Charissa once encountered a group of students from Illinois while strolling around a street in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She didn't see them because she was looking up at the stadium. As they passed her standing in the middle of the sidewalk, one of them snapped at her. "Move," was all he said. "I met my first certified Yankees," she reported upon returning home that night.
People from the big city are abrupt on a regular basis. The fast pace at which they live leaves no time for an exchange of pleasantries common to rural areas. Or at least, so goes the theory.
After spending a week in Maryland, Saphronia and I prepared ourselves for rude comments and dressings-down by citizens with little patience for a pair of rubes from the South. It never happened. We pushed the wrong buttons at the subway terminal. The attendant patiently undid our mistake and showed us how to order the amount of trips we needed. We asked directions of a man on the sidewalk and were politely directed where we needed to go. Later in the week, lost, we were assisted by a friendly security guard who appeared from nowhere. We didn't even have to ask.
Yes, there were rude people who refused to speak to us. I think I counted about four of them. Maybe only three. Three people refused to return a friendly Texas "howdy." Several hundred struck up a conversation with us.
I guess people are about as nice as you will let them be. It has something to do with the Golden Rule: "Do to others as you would have them do to you." Luke 6:31. Jesus taught his disciples to love everyone: your friends, neighbors and even your enemies. "Give," he says, "and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
People tend to respond favorably to politeness, humility and friendliness. If you're charitable toward them, they will repay your kindness in kind, as a rule. It’s true with animals, too. Dogs wag their tails when greeted in a cheerful manner. They may tuck their tail or bare their teeth when yelled at.
Practice the Golden Rule, and you might just find gold. Dale Carnegie sold millions of copies of his book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” which he based on the Golden Rule. This is just one more way to let your light shine. Jesus said we ought to live in such a way that our light shines among people, and they will glorify God because of the love and charity we display. Try it the next time you go on a trip out of town. Better yet, try it in town.