What Makes You Smile?

 How often do you smile everyday? Do you know? Is it a conscious decision? Do you find reasons to smile? Maybe if you don't you should. I try to find reasons to smile everyday. I like to think of things to make me happy. It seems weird when you think about it that way I'm sure, but smiling is a gateway to something so much better. It brightens your day, it makes you forget about all the bad things for just a split second and makes you feel young again. Smiling is a drug, it leads to laughter and it brings on a rush of feel good endorphins to your brain setting you on a happy-high. It almost seems too good to be true, is it?

 Bare with me now on this, I want to take you on a trip down memory lane. I was a relatively happy child. Albeit a tad mischievous, but then again what child isn't at some time or another. When I was about the age of 7 I was hyper, and talkative. My father lovingly nicknamed me motormouth for my lack of ability to know when to shut my mouth. I was the youngest in the family, and a huge family it was.

  I am one of 12 children. Now I am sure to most that number seems high, but not all of us are ACTUALLY brothers and sisters. We were, for the most part raised that way. That's another story though, one which when the time comes I will share, but I digress.

  I believe at one time there was at least nine of us in the household, including adults. Our cousins who were of about the same age, lived across the field from us, leading to wonderful times spent having fun.

Fighting was one of the biggest ordeals in our house. No, not the bad kind. I'm talking all out, hide in the bushes,sneak attack, smacked in the face with a tomato, FOOD FIGHTS! We were notorious for food fights, water balloon fights, just about anything we could get our hands on. I once was smashed in the face with an entire banana while coming out the front door. My mistake for walking into that one completely unaware of the sneak attack about to take place.

We tried to make it a point of always doing something fun. Thinking back, I can't really remember a time when I was bored. We had kickball all afternoon and when the sun went down we played hide and seek in the dark where everyone in the family, cousins included, would join in the fun. I remember cool summer nights in West Virginia, the nights lit up by fireflies and flashlight beams and screaming and shrieking and nothing but smiles on everyones faces. It was exciting and hilarious and so much fun.

Finding Your Happiness!

If you are able to recall memories easily, that is one of the most simple things you can do. Just take some time to meditate on the things that make you happy and find your smile. The stress of the day can really get to you sometimes if you don't find a way to release it.

If just thinking about stuff isn't your thing why not write about it? There are so many ways to express your feelings. Why not do it in a way that you get the chance to come back to every now and then to relive that moment and the feelings you had at the time? Keeping things bottled up inside is unhealthy to the heart, the soul and your mind. It keeps you in a constant state of stress, therefore, unhappy.

   Spending quality time with friends, family and loved ones is really one of the best ways to really remember how to smile. Watch a funny movie, tell a joke and just laugh until you cry, relive those old family traditions and catch fireflies on a summer night while you watch the heat lightning in the distance, or just make new traditions altogether. Life is what you make it, and if you make it harder than it needs to be, then you will find it hard to smile.

If you can't be with a loved one and you are truly finding it hard to find your smile then push through it and do something that MAKES you smile. Jump on a trampoline, swing on a swing set at the park, crank up a song and DANCE, get up and DO something. Do an activity that you feel foolish, and silly and you HAVE to laugh at yourself. In a time where people find it necessary to be heavily medicated for depression, the little things really do count. Life is tough, being unhappy makes it even more so. Speaking from experience, you really do have to be able to smile in order to feel alive, or life will really get you down.

  Have you ever received a random smile from a stranger? Did it make you smile? Did you then smile at another random person and they smile back? It's a chain reaction, cause and effect. Smiling is catching and causes a snowball effect. Try smiling at a stranger next time you are out, you may be surprised how far that smile will travel. You never know whose day you will brighten from something as simple as a smile.