SMILE or die tryin'

Category: Think 

Inspiration for this post came as a result of reading a story about a woman who claims she hasn't smiled in more than 40 years. She didn't even smile when her daughter was born, all to maintain her youthful looks and avoid creation of wrinkles on her face.  In my opinion this is so tragic and pathetic on various levels - first of all, it demonstrates both shallowness and stupidity in her particular case, but also could be easily applied on a general scale.  

On the other hand,  wrinkles ad character to your face and serve as a reminder of all the ups and downs you graciously faced in life. Is there a better proof for this statement than a picture of the oldest woman in the world. Unfortunately, this gorgeous lady died few days ago at the age of 117 and this post may also be my homage to her. What's also sad in this regard is that the "no smile creature" keeps walking on this world.  :/ 

 

Life can really be tough and unfair in various ways, but if you take away smiles from it, what's left? I really have hard time understanding how someone can deliberately chose such a life without a single smile, especially if we keep in mind that such variety of emotions and facial expressions is in the very essence of what makes us who we are. Here are also few more or less known facts about smiling and its benefits: 

• smiling is one of the most powerful tools you can use to instantly upgrade your first impression or boost your charisma 
• smiling is one of the best anti stress therapies (together with sex) as it instantly decreases cortisol levels and blood pressure, which shall promptly contribute to the overall good feeling 
• according to some tests, new born babies are much more receptive towards people with smiling faces compared to ones with no expression or hostile face gestures
• we all know that smiling tends to be considered a best medicine, but it's less known that some cultures assign healing properties to smiling in general and practice it in different alternative medicine procedures (my favorite example is yoga laugh sessions that are ridiculously funny and therefore highly desirable if you ask me :)
• "laughing your guts out" may be one of the cheapest and easiest stuff that you can practice instead of doing boring exercises for flattening your stomach (or at least that's what I choose to believe :) )

As today more and more of our smiles becomes virtual and number of on-line smiling abbreviations exponentially increases, the phenomenon of smiling is losing its authenticity and true purpose. The other problem is botox and other face lifting poisons, which simply erase all smiles on somebody's face and makes it literally unable to express or recognize any further emotional facial expressions. Additional issues might be overall depressing situation in the world that may seem hopeless for some people or our capitalistic system which appreciates only profit creation and often treats display of emotions as a sign of weakness, especially among managerial positions.    

So, next time before you send virtual LOL, LMAO or ROFL to somebody, remember that genuine smile still opens all doors and that's face to face smile is the most relevant one that counts. Smile to a stranger on the street, smile to your significant other, make your dog wags his tail, smile to an old lady from your neighborhood, share a joke, even greet your self with a mirror smile each morning. Point is to illuminate somebody's day with such a small gesture. You're not a Grumpy cat or Grouchy smurf - for them it might be cool to avoid smiling, for you it certainly wouldn't be. There's enough negativity and pessimism in this world. What we need is to breed more optimists or "beacons" - persons who constantly radiate positive energy and hope, altruistically sharing it with others. Therefore, make it your personal mission to lure or give at least one smile per day. Every single day, until you develop a habit. Smile or die tryin' - there's simply no alternative!