Give someone the finger and you are likely to receive a quick and similar rebuttal.
Give someone a smile, and you are just as likely to receive a like response.
We see our child beaming with innocent, unbridled joy for life, and we soon find our cheeks hurting because we cannot help but smile in wonder and appreciation.
“A day above ground, is a day worth smiling about.”
As I depart from the Woodstock Fruit Festival, I know that one of the major differences I often experience is a downturn in the amount of unsolicited smiles I will receive. But, that doesn’t mean that I won’t be doing by share of unsolicited showing of my own pearly whites. I set out to see how long it would take me to get 10 smiles in the airport.
“I was smiling yesterday, I am smiling today, and I will smile tomorrow. Simply because life is too short to cry for anything.”
At 4am, it was slow going and the first few passersby were content to watch me smiling with a committed-to-tired look upon their face, but I still squeezed a smile out of the TSA agent just arriving to work. After awaking from a nap, I picked up where I left off and found great success in reaching the 10 mark within a short 5 minutes.
Smiling benefits our mood by releasing pleasurable endorphins in our body, and we can use to to our advantage even when we aren’t feeling too chipper. The next time you find yourself feeling down in dumps or your mood slipping, try this: place a pen or pencil in between your teeth so it forces a smile. Your body will be ‘tricked’ into producing ‘happy’ endorphins and you will notice an improvement in your mood within a minute of doing this.
