SMILE – MAGIC MADE SIMPLE


SMILE

“When you meet someone who has no smile… give ‘em one of yours.”
~Sandye Linnetz and countless others

There’s a very cool piece of art hanging on the wall just outside my bedroom. I see it as I fall asleep and when I first wake up. It says: ”Your Day Will Go The Way The Corners of Your Mouth Turn”.  And it makes me smile.

I come from a long line of smilers and I have that happy gene. My grandma, Ida (or “Idie Pidie” as I called her), was blessed with dimples so big that when she smiled it looked like her face was caving in! Seriously the most joyous and contagious smile I’ve ever seen.

I have dimples, too (thank you, Grandma), and although I don’t have the face-caving-in variety, they do show even when I’m not really smiling. For years I was surprised when total strangers spoke to me and confused by how often they smiled, nodded or waved at me. Then one day, as I glanced at the mirror, I noticed this happy face smiling at me and realized that although I wasn’t actually smiling, I had a smile on my face! That made me smile… and think.

This is so easy! I don’t have to do anything; except be awake – and be around people – to involuntarily spread joy. And the crazy thing I’ve noticed is that when people think I’m smiling at them (even when I’m not), they smile at me. And then, BAM!!! I smile back. I can’t help it. It’s automatic.

Sharing a smile is right up there with a Rube Goldberg machine. It’s ingeniously cool and performs a simple task. Each smile you give begets another smile and another and another… And those smiles are ever so likely to translate into kind words, good deeds, love, friendliness and a myriad of other happy stuff.  That easy, unassuming, uncomplicated smile; the one you gave (or got) made the sun shine and life good for everyone in its reach. There’s magic in sharing a smile.

And then there’s the ‘pay it forward’ element. A smile has the capacity to instantly produce happiness and joy in the person who gives it, the one who gets it and then, as a byproduct, to pretty much everyone else who comes in contact with either of them! It’s the happiest virus in town.