Hugging it out...

“Hugging is a beautiful Western custom…” Thich Nhat Hanh

This shouldn’t come as any surprise to those who know me, but I’m a big fan of hugging. I got a lot of love to give out, so I hug just about anyone. A lot of people put out the hand and I just bypass it and come in for the real thing. It makes both parties feel better, I think. Everyone is huggable.

The other day, a friend says to me (in Spanish), “Jake, I saw you on tv the other day. Were you in Lima and gave someone a hug on the street who had a sign saying, ‘free hugs’?” I said yeah, I did. Apparently they were filming and made some show out of it.

So the story was simply that. I was walking down the street in Lima, in one of the busiest parts of the city, and there was some dude standing on the corner with a sign that said free hugs. He had a mask on, which was really just a face printed on paper and put over his face. I stopped, looked at him, then said come and get one!

Just a short story, but being on tv for that, I thought, was pretty cool and I wanted to share. Don’t forget to give more hugs!