Never underestimate the power of smile. At one time, I was mad as hell when someone took the book I bought. I left it on top of my table before I left for work. When I returned home, it was gone. I really don’t have any problem with it if the person who took it just left a note that he was borrowing it. At least, with a note I can always ask the person if he is already done with the book.
But what really got my nerve this time was the fact that I had some scribbled notes on the said book which I inserted. I was afraid that whoever took the book might just throw away the notes I had written.
I was about to give up when my niece came to my room. “I am very much sorry, uncle,” she said. I was surprised; what had she done to me, I asked myself. She took something from her bag and with a big smile, “Here’s your book which I took without your knowledge. I forgot to leave a note.”
It didn’t matter if the book was lost. What mattered most was the fact that here was my niece and with a broad smile eased all those worries. “A smile is central to our evolution and one of the most powerful tools of human behavior,” explains Dr. Cacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, who has studied the importance of facial expression – including the variety and impact of smiles.
In 1872, Charles Darwin proposed in his book, The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals that facial expressions are biologically based and universal among humans. However, the celebrated anthropologist Margaret Mead thought the smile was a cultural behavior that varied between societies.
There are several reasons why a person smiles. One indicator is that he or she is in love. Barry Manilow, referring to his beloved, croons, “I can’t smile without you.”
“A smile costs nothing but gives much,” someone once wrote. “It enriches those who receive without making poorer those who give. It takes but a moment, but the memory of it sometimes lasts forever. None is so rich or mighty that he cannot get along without it and none is so poor that he cannot be made rich by it. Yet a smile cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is of no value to anyone until it is given away. Some people are too tired to give you a smile. Give them one of yours, as none needs a smile so much as he who has no more to give.”
“Smile and others will smile back,” Jean Baudrillard thinks. “Smile to show how transparent, how candid you are. Smile if you have nothing to say. Most of all, do not hide the fact you have nothing to say nor your total indifference to others. Let this emptiness, this profound indifference shine out spontaneously in your smile.”
But more often than not, people stop smiling. It seems they are carrying the whole problem of the world. Even in the early morning, when they should face the new day with gladness, they are already frowning. There are several reasons but those reasons are not enough to let yourself not to smile.
Here’s one poet said, “If at times you feel you want to cry and life seems such a trial. Above the clouds there’s a bright blue sky, so make your tears a smile. As you travel on life’s way with its many ups and downs, remember its quite true to say one smile is worth a dozen frowns.”
The poet continues: “Among the world’s expensive things, a smile is very cheap. And when you give a smile away, you get one back to keep. Happiness comes at times to all but sadness comes unbidden and sometimes a few tears must fall among the laughter hidden. So when friends have sadness on their face and troubles round them piled, the world will seem a better place and all because you smiled.”
A smile can make a woman more beautiful. I have not seen a beauty contest where the contestants are not smiling. “Beauty is power; a smile is its sword,” Charles Reade pointed out. And someone commented, “I’ve never seen a smiling face that was not beautiful.” (Frank) Gelett Burgess also said, “Thinking a smile all the time will you’re your face youthful.”
After all, a smile, according to Charles Gordy, “is an inexpensive way to change your looks.” George Eliot surmises, “Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles. American humorist Mark Twain also stated so: “Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.” Just a reminder: It takes seventeen muscles to smile and forty-three to frown.
If you can smile, why don’t smile at all. How unfortunate a person is, if he can’t smile anymore. Twice in his adult life, Ross Main had has his face paralyzed by Bell’s palsy, a disorder in which the seventh cranial never becomes inflamed, probably from a viral infection. “I could only smile with half my face, and the result was this weird grimace,” he says.
Looking for peace between a husband and wife, or between enemies? The answer to that question is a big smile. As Nobel Peace Prize winner Mother Teresa said, “Peace begins with a smile.” A smile, nonetheless, is a powerful weapon; you can even break ice with it.
“Today,” urged H. Jackson Brown, Jr., “give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.” A poet puts it more succinctly. “Smiling is infectious; you can catch it like the flu. Someone smiled at me today and I started smiling too.”
For comments, write me at henrytacio@gmail.com
But what really got my nerve this time was the fact that I had some scribbled notes on the said book which I inserted. I was afraid that whoever took the book might just throw away the notes I had written.
I was about to give up when my niece came to my room. “I am very much sorry, uncle,” she said. I was surprised; what had she done to me, I asked myself. She took something from her bag and with a big smile, “Here’s your book which I took without your knowledge. I forgot to leave a note.”
It didn’t matter if the book was lost. What mattered most was the fact that here was my niece and with a broad smile eased all those worries. “A smile is central to our evolution and one of the most powerful tools of human behavior,” explains Dr. Cacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, who has studied the importance of facial expression – including the variety and impact of smiles.
In 1872, Charles Darwin proposed in his book, The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals that facial expressions are biologically based and universal among humans. However, the celebrated anthropologist Margaret Mead thought the smile was a cultural behavior that varied between societies.
There are several reasons why a person smiles. One indicator is that he or she is in love. Barry Manilow, referring to his beloved, croons, “I can’t smile without you.”
“A smile costs nothing but gives much,” someone once wrote. “It enriches those who receive without making poorer those who give. It takes but a moment, but the memory of it sometimes lasts forever. None is so rich or mighty that he cannot get along without it and none is so poor that he cannot be made rich by it. Yet a smile cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is of no value to anyone until it is given away. Some people are too tired to give you a smile. Give them one of yours, as none needs a smile so much as he who has no more to give.”
“Smile and others will smile back,” Jean Baudrillard thinks. “Smile to show how transparent, how candid you are. Smile if you have nothing to say. Most of all, do not hide the fact you have nothing to say nor your total indifference to others. Let this emptiness, this profound indifference shine out spontaneously in your smile.”
But more often than not, people stop smiling. It seems they are carrying the whole problem of the world. Even in the early morning, when they should face the new day with gladness, they are already frowning. There are several reasons but those reasons are not enough to let yourself not to smile.
Here’s one poet said, “If at times you feel you want to cry and life seems such a trial. Above the clouds there’s a bright blue sky, so make your tears a smile. As you travel on life’s way with its many ups and downs, remember its quite true to say one smile is worth a dozen frowns.”
The poet continues: “Among the world’s expensive things, a smile is very cheap. And when you give a smile away, you get one back to keep. Happiness comes at times to all but sadness comes unbidden and sometimes a few tears must fall among the laughter hidden. So when friends have sadness on their face and troubles round them piled, the world will seem a better place and all because you smiled.”
A smile can make a woman more beautiful. I have not seen a beauty contest where the contestants are not smiling. “Beauty is power; a smile is its sword,” Charles Reade pointed out. And someone commented, “I’ve never seen a smiling face that was not beautiful.” (Frank) Gelett Burgess also said, “Thinking a smile all the time will you’re your face youthful.”
After all, a smile, according to Charles Gordy, “is an inexpensive way to change your looks.” George Eliot surmises, “Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles. American humorist Mark Twain also stated so: “Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.” Just a reminder: It takes seventeen muscles to smile and forty-three to frown.
If you can smile, why don’t smile at all. How unfortunate a person is, if he can’t smile anymore. Twice in his adult life, Ross Main had has his face paralyzed by Bell’s palsy, a disorder in which the seventh cranial never becomes inflamed, probably from a viral infection. “I could only smile with half my face, and the result was this weird grimace,” he says.
Looking for peace between a husband and wife, or between enemies? The answer to that question is a big smile. As Nobel Peace Prize winner Mother Teresa said, “Peace begins with a smile.” A smile, nonetheless, is a powerful weapon; you can even break ice with it.
“Today,” urged H. Jackson Brown, Jr., “give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.” A poet puts it more succinctly. “Smiling is infectious; you can catch it like the flu. Someone smiled at me today and I started smiling too.”
For comments, write me at henrytacio@gmail.com
