Always Keep Smiling

Some, I don't remember who, wrote Always Keep Smiling in one of my high school yearbooks. For some reason, surprising to me, that person thought of me as a smiler.

But I wasn't. That is something I have always had to work on. Pictures of me as a child show me always as very serious. If there is a smile in any of those pictures, it is asmall, nervous little smile, almost as though I didn't know how to smile.

Work on smiling. Smiles relax you; smiles draw the world to you; smiles turn negatives into positives; in short, there are many many benefits to smiling.

Smile and the world smiles with you. there are smiles that make you ahppy. And many things go well with a smile.

Smile -- it is a marketing mavens dream come true: what a product it is if you only smile.

I know all that. So how do I execute it" How do I turn a serious face into a smiling face that looks genuine? All the time?

A friend saw me driving in the country. "Who were you angry at," she asked me. "you looked so mad."

I wasn't angry. I was thinking. I cherished my drive time for the thinking it made possible. Angry: I wouldn't waste drving time on anger.

So how do I set my face to look pleasant all the time. My father had the same serious look. Yes, many thought it was an angry look. My grandfather was equally stern looking, but his sternness was tempered with a glint in his eye, a softenss around his eyes, a warmth that drew people in, and a gentle smile. Father and son. Of the two, my grandfather was the one you would not want to mess with. But it was my Dad, the compassionate man, that had the angry look.

Smile! I keep reminding myself. Smile!