You know what I wish? I wish I could hug everyone in the world.

I think I’d start by hugging the young waitress in the restaurant where I had lunch. Earlier that day, she was cussed out by an angry customer. He screamed at her. Called her a bad name.

“My job is getting so much harder lately,” she admitted. “It seems like people are getting meaner in today’s world.”

Next, I’d hug the supermarket cashier, who seemed sad as I was checking out. Who didn’t think I could tell that her mascara was running as she scanned my items.

When I asked her if everything was okay, she wore a brave smile and spoke in a Slavic accent. “I’m okay.” And I knew she was lying.

I wish I could hug the guy at the drive-thru window, who told me that his dog, Ishmael, just died.

“My dog got me through a time when I had nobody, man. He was my only friend.”

I wish I could embrace the Walmart employee who helped me find the raisins, which I could not seem to locate within the stereophonically unmitigated hell that is Wally World on a weekend.

The employee and I got to talking. Today was her son’s birthday. He was turning 10. But she would be working doubles at a second job, and would miss his party.

“It sucks,” she said. “I hope he realizes the best gift I can give is food in the fridge and our bills paid. My mom never gave that to me.”

I wish I could hug her so hard.

But more than that. I wish my simple embrace could work like magic. I wish one hug could empty the recipient of all sorrow, and worry, and fear, and doubt, even if only for a few flickering moments.

And I wish that, as I hugged various people, they would feel lighter. As though the world’s judgements and recriminations, which we all carry on our shoulders, would melt away.

Maybe my hug could make them feel accepted. Unembarrassed to be who they truly are. No matter who that may be. No matter how many people don’t like it.

I wish they could feel no reproach in my arms, no condemnation, no disapproval. I wish they could feel something else instead.

I wish that, as we embraced, they would sense that our hearts were practically touching. Because that’s what a hug is, really. Two hearts, pressed closely together, beating almost in unison, separated only mere inches of tissue and bone.

I wish my one super-hug could set off a chain reaction of hugging. A mass hugging. I wish everyone in the store would take a second and hold someone who needs it.

And then I wish that everyone would leave the store energized, taking their hugs out into the world, hugging random bystanders in their lives, people whom they might never even DREAM of hugging. And as we held one another, maybe we could feel how frailly human we both truly are.

I wish these hugs would spread across oceans, into continents. I wish enemies to embrace. Jew and Muslim. American and Latino. Protestant and Catholic. Atheist and Religiophile. Liberal and Conservative. White-collar and blue-collar. Democrat and Republican. Gay and straight. Black and white. Rich and poor. Me and you.

Maybe then we’d treat each other nicer.