Thursday 17 March 2011

Smiling through life

Here's a quote. It takes seventeen muscles to smile and forty-three to frown. But I used to add an extension of my own. "It takes seventeen muscle to smile and forty-three to frown, but it takes none if you are emotionless."

It kind of showed my mindset didn't it. Back then I thought being expressionless was better than putting a smile on your face. It kept me from having to explain why I was happy, and I could blend in with the crowd, who all went around with no expression. Only until recently have I begun to change my idea of what expression I should wear on my face.

This post is titled "smiling through life", because that is what I decided to do. Whenever I was just doing nothing, or just had no expression on my face I would smile. I practiced at home looking outside for awhile. When I didn't smile the scenery was just normal to me, but when I smiled everything seemed to gain a happy tinge to it. The scenery was nice now!

It became kind of like a game. "What smiling will do to what I am seeing". The long walk to the train station became a nice, relaxing walk, giving me time to think, the dishes became an act of servitude I was sure my mum would appreciate. It was actually quite fun!

Another thing I noticed was that even if you felt down, or just couldn't see any light in the world, by smiling something good would pop into your head. Like right now, I wasn't actually thinking much, and was worried about all the work I had to do, but then I smiled and I remembered all of my readers I have who actually want to hear what I have to say, and how lucky I am to have them. It seems so simple, even to me, but everyone time I did it, it lifted by day up.

So, what expression have you been wearing lately? Try smiling, right now! Tell me how it changed you view on things around you. Be a light in the dark world. Be different to others. Keep on smiling because it is a God given gift we too often take granted of.

10 comments:

  1. I came by to visit from FTLOB. I truly agree about smiling. We can choose how we look at things in our life...we can smile and be thankful for our many gifts from God or we can complain about the prayers he has not answered. I choose; hope, and happiness and being thankful each and every day. Sometimes a smile is the only thing good someone sees that day...maybe they are having a terrible day and you smile at them and it makes their whole day better!!!
    This was a great post today!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your so right! Sometimes all we have to do is smile and it makes a real impact in so many ways! God has given us an amazing gift in the smile yet so often we don't even think about it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This was a good post! I've been trying to smile a lot but sometimes my head is full of sooo many thoughts and then I think I seem emotionless! But this week---no matter what Ii'm going to smile more! Found you on FTLOB! Hope you will check out our blog as well!

    http://jetsettingdivas.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. WOW!! This actually does work. I am going to try ans remember this. Having some hard itmes at work and I think I need something like this to keep my spirits up. Thank you!

    Happy Sunday- Just stopped by from FTLOB!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Its funny, this is the second time I've heard about this in the past few days!

    Maybe this is a lesson I need to embrace. Thank you for it!

    ReplyDelete
  6. A smile can light up a whole room. Thanks for the reminder. Came by way of FTLOB. Love your blog. A new follower.

    Sherree
    http://www.chmitlinfamily.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  7. All right, you got me. I'm usually that chick who goes around expressionless throughout the day. What makes it worse is that my natural expressionless face looks like a scowl, so people assume that I'm mad when I'm not. (It's hereditary; my mother has the same "mean" expressionless face.)

    While I was reading this post, I smiled on purpose a few times and was surprised to feel a positive little indescribable something arise in my soul! Woah! You may be onto something! The real test, however, will be Monday morning when I have to return to work. Maybe I'll report back to give you an update :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. aw!!! I think God brought me to this post (through FTLOB) to help me work on smiling more in my own life. it's SO easy to see the world in the half-empty view but just a simple smile can change it all! thank you :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thank you everyone. Next week i plan to do an extension topic on this one, because, as some of you said, smiling is only a temporary solution.

    I hope to delve deeper and find a more longer lasting hit to keep you optimistic!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Thank you :+) this is beautiful!x

    ReplyDelete