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Do you have a story where yours or someone's smile totally changed the outcome of an unpleasant situation?
A smile is a curve that sets everything straight. ~Phyllis Diller
A smile is an inexpensive way to change your looks. ~Charles Gordy
The world always looks brighter from behind a smile. ~Author Unknown
Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been. ~Mark Twain, Following the Equator
If you smile when no one else is around, you really mean it. ~Andy Rooney
Life is like a mirror, we get the best results when we smile at it. ~Author Unknown
More quotes here http://www.quotegarden.com/smiles.html
Topics:
Smile happiness human behavior negotiation
Closing Statement from Dave Lim
Gratitude to and appreciate each and every one here for sharing your experiences and feelings.
Dana Sanford
Jacqueline MacLean
Another Open University student read a post I had written on the OU site about my big smily plan for 2011 and decided he would give it a go. He kindly got back in touch to tell me about how surprised he was with the results, so much so that he decided he was going to keep it up. How fantastic is that - and yes, it made me smile!
So I think that smiling does change situations - maybe it even has the potential to avert a difficult situation - who knows.
Ecaterina Sanalatii 10+
This is because I believe in the following:
1) In life, the best is yet to come
2) As Carnegie rightly said - Your smile is a messenger of your good will. Your smile brightens the lives of all who see it. To someone who has seen a dozen people frown, scowl or turn their faces away, your smile is like the sun breaking through the clouds
3) Smiling makes us live longer
Smiles don't only change the outcomes of bad situations, they prevent bad situations from happening.
And just think to all those positive things that happen as a result of our smiles - the smile of a caring mother, the smile of a loving second half, the smile of the passer by, the smile when you got your job, the smile of a child... don't they all change our lives?
SMILE
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Ecaterina Sanalatii 10+
Love it!
Candy Allen-Smith 10+
For several years now I have a daily visitor who appears to be homeless in appearance (but isn't) and whom many other downtown businesses shoo away. Well-meaning friends have questioned the sense in my allowing her continued access to my shop and my phone and the occasional ride to take her to a fast-food place she likes to frequent. I remind them that she is persona non grata in so many places and I may be the only person that is kind to her. The small kindnesses she receives from me seem so simple and truly cost me nothing and at the end of the day I feel a wealth of satisfaction for having given them away.
Debra Smith 200+
Colleen Steen 500+
You said it all..."at the end of the day I feel a wealth of satisfaction for having given them away".
"Life begets life,
Energy creates energy
It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich"
(Sarah Bernhardt)
P.S. Smiles, hugs and popcorn are all good:>)
(Colleen Steen)
Eduardo Orue
Tim Nugent-Head
www.rednosegroup.com
Debra Smith 200+
Meher Like Spring Rabbit 10+
Alma Lopez-Johnston
My dog just has to be himself and elicits lots of smiles..
Albert Hill
Being confronted with an unexpected smile always reminds me to widen my perspective, step back from any problems I may be having and gain perspective, consider others, and a longer term view. It creates connections where there could easily be none and brightens the world around it.
Now I have to plug this upcoming TEDx conference in the Bay Area of California - TEDx Golden Gate ED is a fast-approaching conference that's all about Teaching Compassion (approaching that phrase from all possible angles). I'm helping them out with some social media marketing, but this is a something I am passionate about. You can join our community discussion here:
https://www.facebook.com/TEDxGoldenGateED
and find out more about the conference here:
http://tedxgoldengateed.org
I'm very excited to see what they have to say about smiles! The neuroscience side of smiles is super interesting, and I hope to learn more about other positive effects they spread, while I continue to spread them!
Rose Asoh
Debra Smith 200+
Alma Lopez-Johnston
Meher Like Spring Rabbit 10+
She knows the way! she has the light! Follow her!
daily affirmations!
Candy Allen-Smith 10+
Debra Smith 200+
Iwanca Hansson
After reading a while I thought to myself - Maybe this is it? Can this be the answer to my question!? So I began to smile at my computerscreen. (silly, I know) But because I felt so weird, some tears came into the picture as well. But I ignored them and continued to read all the posts while I smiled and smiled and smiled. Actually I have to admit that my smile at the time more looked like a sad pathetic grimace than a genuine smile. But after reading a while I actually began to smile for real! Slowly but surely my smile started to feel authentic and honest, despite the fact that my tears still flooded my eyes and my heart stubbornly was hovering in the shadows.
Suddenly, I don't really know how it happened, but I just started to feel better and better - to my amazement. And now I can only say that it really works to smile! Even if you smile alone - at yourself or a computerscreen! Even when you smile reluctantly with tears in your eyes, the brain responds chemically and actually tells you to feel better!
Of course the posts that I read here was the reason why I smiled with a genuine feeling. It's there, in that true honest feeling where the miracle occurs and the brain starts to respond. But still, the message is that a smile can bring you miracles!
I even got enough of energy to write this down - amazing or what? Unfortunately, I now feel that my energy is about to end. So I may have to read some more of encouraging messages while I squeeze out a few more smiles. But after that - I'm on my way again:)
Lღ√Ƹ to you all!
Debra Smith 200+
I, for one (and I feel that there are MANY more), am thrilled to hear that you are smiling! I hope it catches hold deep down! If you stick around to enjoy other TED conversations I guarentee that you will smile more often- sometimes when you least expect it- because I find myself unexpectly smiling and sometimes laughing out loud at the varieties of insight!
Iwanca Hansson
PS I'm really looking forward to enjoy a lot of smiles :) and laughters :D here!
Debra Smith 200+
http://youtu.be/vr3x_RRJdd4
My favourte part of this true story is when the tall young man gets down on his knees to hug the old lady and she touches his face. Just observe the sweet quality of the smiles on the faces of the people- both huggers and huggees!
When my kids used to complain about cranky people- I asked them to ask themselves "Who hugs this person?" If the answer was 'no one' I asked them to forgive their crankiness as it was probably born of loneliness. It helped my kids to be more understanding people. I wish I had also taught them to just go ahead and hug people as this young man decided to do.
Alma Lopez-Johnston
My son is working at Subway and he says there is this lady who goes everyday, and is miserable and grumpy. I suggested she is unhappy, and for him to smile at her.. He is dubious, but who knows? It might help them both! I like your question to your children..
Debra Smith 200+
Meher Like Spring Rabbit 10+
Debra Smith 200+
Meher Like Spring Rabbit 10+
Debra Smith 200+
Candy Allen-Smith 10+
sunita kumar
Meher Like Spring Rabbit 10+
http://www.youtube.com/user/wearechange?blend=1&ob=4#p/a/f/0/27Jj0lcmm5Q
disregard the brief interlude of propaganda if you'd like but recognize the shear brilliance and beauty of what this group is doing.
Debra Smith 200+
I loved it! Thanks so much - I'm passing it on!
Meher Like Spring Rabbit 10+
Bea Vanni
If nothing else, we must share our smiles because it may be the only thing a person sees in an entire day to make them feel good, worthy, accepted, loved and wanted.
Meher Like Spring Rabbit 10+
sachin kamat
here in india smiling at strangers, greeting stangers in a lift or as they cross you on the road is just not done.
but there is a way around it. and that is children.
i noticed this just now as i saw this talk and read through these comments that i have a habit of smiling at/ greeting / talking to children regardless of where i come across them and whether i know them at all.
at a waiting room, in a queue, in the rear window of a car thats in front of yours- everywhere. if you smile at them, wave hands, call out to them they will respond. and unhesitantly and happily.
and thats a great way to punctuate everyday with some nice moments.
Like there is this tiny girl who stands at her window when i enter my office every morning. she can hardly talk yet, but everyday when i pass by we have a routine of waving and smiling that we both wait for.
or the kid in someone's arm will smile back and even extend a hand as you're standing in a lift.
now that i think about it- i'd also recommend it highly. go ahead and try it. you'll be surprised at how nice it can make you feel
Emily Orton
To me, the smiles of nurses have been ruined, by one single insincere act. I was around eight or nine, I'm not sure of the date anymore, but I remember being at eye level with a hospital door handle. I was wandering through a hospital. My mother had just been interred into the ICU, and they had outsted me and my tinyness, thinking me too young to want to know the pain her mother went through. On her door, there was an orange hazard sign. I didn't know what it meant until later, but the impression stuck after this moment. I had lost myself in the maze of hallways catacombing through the place like snakes. Suddenly, I saw a light that was out of place. A hospital is a place full of small glittering lights, but this one... this one was odd. It was in the hands of a very old woman, sitting in a hospital bed. Being the self-righteous little monster that I was, I burst in on her, hands on hips, demanding her ciggarette. She looked at me and laughed dryly, and then began to unscrew the end of her ciggarette. She told me it was a plastic one, that only shot out steam. Then she asked where my mother was. I said in a room with a big orange sign where the doctors never went in without masks.
Then she smiled. It was the saddest, most pity filled smile I have ever seen to this day. I ran away, and hid with my father in the waiting lounge. Although I've forgotten her name, I still remember that awful, painful smile. One may say that a smile can save a life, but it can also terrify another.
Debra Smith 200+
Nesrin eren
Debra Smith 200+
A few years ago Ihad a cancer surgery that was very extensive. i was on a hospital floor where many people did not survive. Codes were called, doors were closed and someone was gone. I was told to walk the day after my surgery even with a huge open hole in my body and a morphine drip directly into my spinal fluid. The walking would help to speed my recovery.As I made my slow rounds of the hallways, I could not help but notice people who were really suffering. There were few smiles on that floor. Even the staff had the look of vigilance against death.
Memory is often triggered by similarities and this reminded me that when I was a kid, I visited my grandmother as she lay dying and I noticed that every other room had flowers except hers. In my childish way I thought it meant that she was not loved as well as the other people. I must have told that story to my kids at some point because they flooded my room with flowers.On my walks circling the floor, I found a service room with vases and I began to make little arrangements from my abundance. I would sneak them into rooms without flowers when people were sleeping or absent.
This little game I started with myself took my mind off my agonies and gave my walking a distracting purpose. It took me outside myself. Soon the hushed hallways had the occassional bright chatter of surprise and the mystery of the flowers brightened the place a bit. Soon there were smiles where none had been before. I got away with it for quite awhile and even when someone figured it out, they helped to keep the secret.
There were more and more smiles in that place- a breathe of kindness- a spring of hope. I tell this true story not to elevate myself but to elevate us all. Sometimes we can make smiles happen by doing something miniscule. And the reward can be unexpected and hugely life affirming. After all - I'm still here- still smiling!
Matt Tucker
Joe Mathews
Ari Hahn
(But ain't always so easy...)
Robert Cassidy
lynn eschbach 30+
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
lynn eschbach 30+
Samuel Icke
Thomas Butler
now how do we do that on the interwebz? is this enough --> :)
Debra Smith 200+
Colleen Steen 500+
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
Tim Adams
Colleen Steen 500+
There were studies done years ago indicating that smiling releases endorphins in the brain, which are mood enhancing and physically healing...laughter is good medicine:>)
Albert Hill
That story has really stuck with me. My default expression, I realized back in high school, is one of seriousness, to the point where my friends would ask me what was wrong while I was just lost in thought staring off in space. I wonder how this has affected my emotional development over the course of my life. I try to smile more consciously now, but it's a slow process. Often I start by focusing on my breathing, then moving to the smile, and on to the people and environment around me (even if it's just me still sitting in front of my laptop).
As the first reply said, we'll have to figure out how to express it more integrally over these interwebz!
Laura Bickle
That is when the despair, while not completely gone, it lifted just enough for a brief amount of time to remember and realize that it is going to be okay; I'll get thru it and happiness is just a laugh away.
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
I can't isolate one story and look forward to the stories of those who can..My most poweful experiences of exchanging smiles have been with young children and babies when they "announce" a discovery or insight with a smile,..and also the smiles o the dying which have a unique radiance.
Elsewhere recentlyon TED someone told the story of a strangers smile bringing and almost spontaneous healing from the confusion and agony of deep grief. I will try to find it and bring it here via link.
Know you will collect many wonderous stories here. Thank you.
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Scott Armstrong 50+
Colleen Steen 500+
Meher Like Spring Rabbit 10+
Colleen Steen 500+
I agree Meher, that we are all more the same than different, and smiling is something we can all do to help ourselves and all those around us feel better:>)
"Make of yourself a light"
(Buddha)
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Colleen Steen 500+
I'm sure you know that many French people speak English. The piece that is important and precious to me, is that we made a connection with a smile:>)
Colleen Steen 500+
My brother and sister-in-law did a house exchange for a month with friends from Asnieres (just north of Paris). My son and I visited for two weeks, staying in the private home. It was a truly GREAT experience and makes me smile thinking about it:>) Yes, I did see Mona's smile.....probably one of the best known in history:>)
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Meher Like Spring Rabbit 10+
That is all.
Meher Like Spring Rabbit 10+
I don't think not fib/lying will improve my chances of getting beamed up by god. Anybody out there get raptured? whats it like, I bet its nice.
I aspire to fall in love with a smile someday in Paris, maybe sooner than later.
I like the art, it is compelling and doesn't feel over my head (though had you not explained it, it would have been)
YellowCat Cat