By Henrylito D. Tacio
Never underestimate the power of a 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 on my nerves 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.
So many famous people have said about smiling. “Nothing you wear is more important than
your smile,” Connie Stevens pointed out. “I love those who can smile in trouble,” said
Leonardo da Vinci, who painted the famous Mona Lisa.
“Smile at strangers and you just might change a life,” urged Steve Maraboli. “Learn
to smile at every situation,” advised Joe Brown. “See it as an opportunity to prove your
strength and ability.”
“A smile is central to our evolution and one of the most powerful tools of human behavior,”
explained 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 says. “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 what 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 it’s 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 around them piled up, 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.”
If you can smile, why don’t you smile at all. How unfortunate a person is, if he can’t smile
anymore. Twice in his adult life, Ross Main has had his face paralyzed by Bell’s palsy, a
disorder in which the seventh cranial nerve becomes inflamed, probably from a viral
infection. “I could only smile with half my face, and the result was this weird grimace,” he
said.
Looking for peace between a husband and wife, or between enemies? The answer to that
question is a big smile. As Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mother Teresa said, “Peace begins
with a smile.” A smile, nonetheless, is a powerful weapon; you can even break ice with it.
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: “Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have
been.” Just a reminder: It takes seventeen muscles to smile and forty-three to frown.
“…and he smiled a lot. The smile did not mean that he was happy. It meant he was stronger
than most people, and that he intended to take advantage of it.” That’s what Michael
Cadnum wrote in Flash.
No wonder, a photographer always tells their subject: Smile! – ###
