Smiley Faces, Happy Home

The human face is capable of creating more than 7,000 expressions. Among those many, the expression that makes you look the youngest and most beautiful and makes you and other people happy is of course a smiley face. When you frown, your eyes and the corners of your mouth are pulled downward, and your forehead and the space between the eyebrows become narrow; you don’t look well. However, when you smile, your eyes, the corners of your mouth, and the cheek muscles are lifted; and the eyebrows and the forehead spread outward; your face becomes bright. The facial muscles when smiling and frowning move in the opposite direction.

There is a Korean proverb that goes, “You can’t spit on a smiling face. A Chinese proverb goes, “Do not open a store if you don’t know how to smile.” There are also quotes like “A smile is the shortest distance between two people” (Victor Borge), “The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter” (Mark Twain), “A smile cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen” (Dale Carnegie), “The most wasted day of all is that on which we have not laughed” (Chamfort), and “A man is not poor if he can still laugh” (Raymond Hitchcock). We can see the power of a smile from these quotes.

The positive aspects of a smile are already well proven scientifically, medically, and psychologically. In many aspects, if you don’t laugh, the one who suffers loss is you. But most people spend so much more time not smiling than smiling. Assuming that a person who laughs for about five minutes a day lives for eighty years, the sum of all his lifetime spent smiling is only about 100 days or less.

Everyone lives with his own drawing paper. It is their faces. The face is something that belongs to each of us but we cannot see it, and the mind and thoughts are not visible, but they are exposed on the face. Therefore, the face is like your mind on a piece of drawing paper you show to other people. In your childhood, you probably drew a nice picture on a piece of white drawing paper at least once. Now it is time to draw the most beautiful picture, which is a smile, on the drawing paper called the face.

A smiley face makes a conversation abundant

People are reluctant to talk to people with emotionless looks. However, they feel like talking to people who are smiling. When it comes to the family, too, if you look moody, your family may think, ‘Did something bad happen to him today? Let me stay away from him, because he may get mad at me if I try to talk to him,’ and they will try to keep a distance. On the contrary, they will want to talk to you about any kind of topic if you have a smile on your face.

A smile is not only good to look at, but it also arouses a good emotion from the person looking at it. Sometimes, a smile gives more friendliness than ten words; no matter how good a word is, if the speaker has a hardened face, the listener cannot help but accept it negatively. When such conversations become frequent, other people’s minds will close little by little.

If your family doesn’t share many conversations, check what kind of face you make at home. Where there is no more smile, there is no more conversation. If you treat your family with a smile, you will feel happier while talking with them because positive feelings enrich the conversation.

A smile leads to success

Jim Carrey started comedy to make his sick mother laugh. He had a hard childhood under his ill mother and unemployed father. He even went homeless, but he did not lose hope and laughter, and eventually became the star of comedy films after performing stand-up comedy numerous times. Later, he confessed that he had found a new life through laughter.

There is another person who cannot be left out when it comes to movie stars who became successful through smiles. An unknown actress went to an entertainment company, seeing the announcement that they were looking for an actress for the leading role of a new movie. When she was told that she had not passed, she turned around with a big smile instead of a frown. Then the director called her back, and she passed the audition. She was Vivien Leigh who became a world star as the heroine of the movie, Gone with the Wind.

In the old days when people fought with swords and shields, generals in the battlefields used laughter as a weapon. By laughing out loud, “Hahaha!” they channeled fear into confidence and dispirited their enemy. When you are nervous, your heart beats faster than usual; but if you smile, you will find stability again.

When going out for interviews or negotiations, do not worry about your attire only, but put a smile on your face first. When you smile, you feel comfortable and even get a good result.

A smile brings happiness

In 1988, Dr. Fritz Strack, a German psychologist, made two groups of people and had them read the same cartoon. He had one group of people hold a pencil with lips and the other group with teeth while reading the cartoon. That way, he encouraged one group to pout and the other to smile. Then the group, who had smiles because of the way they were holding the pencils with teeth, rated the cartoon funnier and remembered the story better.

“When a person imitates a particular emotional expression, the body reacts accordingly,” said Dr. Paul Ekman, an authority on facial expression research. In other words, if you consciously raise the corners of your mouth and smile with wrinkles around your eyes, your brain thinks you are actually smiling and releases happy chemicals.

Smile when you feel down. If it’s too difficult, say “e.” People who smile every day generally have positive attitudes in life. When you feel happy, you naturally get to smile. In the same way, when you change your facial expression, the way you feel changes, too. A smile is a result of happiness, but it’s the beginning of happiness as well.

Show your smile always to your family

A child’s smile is a great joy to his parents. Parents try to make their baby laugh by making an eye contact, funny faces and sounds; and when the baby laughs by chance, they are overjoyed.

The parents’ smile brings joy and comfort to their children. During the Spring and Autumn period in Chinese history (from around 771 B.C. to 476 B.C.) a man named Lao Lai Zi made his old parents laugh by wearing colorful clothes and acting cute when he was seventy years old.

When you love someone, you will want to make him or her smile. It’s because seeing the smile of your loved one will make you joyful and happy.

To make your loved one smile, you have to smile first with a happy mind. Showing a smile to your family is like giving them a big gift. A good parent shows a smile to his child, and a good child shows a smile to his parents.

When we try to please each other, laughing together, the family bond grows stronger. Once you laugh, the problems that seemed big will look small or even disappear. This is why shadows disappear from the hearts of the parents when they see their children smile in hard times of life.

There was a child whom happiness always followed. Happiness was around the child all the time whether he was going to school, eating, or reading. One day, he asked Happiness, “Why do you keep following me?” Happiness answered, “I like your smile.”

Even without the power of humor that makes us laugh our heads off, or of some comedy shows that are on TV at certain times, we can always laugh and become happy. Laughter is contagious; when one person laughs, ten people laugh, too. When you smile, the mirror that reflects your face smiles, and so does your family. It brightens your mind and gives strength to overcome any kinds of hardships.

A smile is a direct expression of gratitude. If you feel grateful even for a small matter, you come to smile. Saying “cheese” for a picture shouldn’t be the only moment to smile. Why don’t you show your smile so that other people’s eyes and your video of life may take pictures of it? I mean, from this very moment!